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All articles in NSAC’s social anxiety blog are written by actual human beings, not artificial intelligence. Our authors are all mental health clinicians who have expertise in evidence-based treatment for social anxiety disorder, and who are affiliated with NSAC Regional Clinics and Associates.
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POST-EVENT-PROCESSING: WHEN SOCIAL ANXIETY RUINS A GREAT EVENING

Avatar photo By Monique Reynolds, PhD October 18, 2022

You finally got up the nerve to attend that party and now you’re in a slightly awkward conversation about travel. You work hard to stay focused on what’s going on around you instead of the little voice in your head that says you sound ridiculous. Before leaving, you decide to say thank you to the host instead of disappearing. You leave feeling tired but just a little bit successful.

The next morning, you wake up like you’ve been sucker-punched. Your mind is spinning with replay after replay of every conversation you had. Every. Single. Thing. That little voice you were able to ignore last night comes back with a vengeance. Your mind is telling you that the person stuck talking with you was secretly rolling her eyes as you talked about wanting to travel to Costa Rica. You feel sick just thinking about calling it your “dream vacation”. The host barely registered that you were there and didn’t care when you left. The experience you had last night is quickly erased and replaced with your social hangover and what your mind tells you is “the real story”.

Understanding Post-Event-Processing

Woman looking to the left with troubling thoughts

If any of this sounds familiar, you are engaging in a classic symptom of social anxiety: post event processing (PEP). When we engage in PEP, we become fixated on specific negative aspects of the social event and can spend long periods of time zeroed in on our perceived mistakes. Things we said, how awkward we felt, how we appeared, and someone else’s momentary reaction can overshadow the entire event and cause us to overlook any positive aspects of the situation. Further, PEP does not stay focused on the single triggering event. Rather, PEP also comes with a flood of memories of other times we “messed up” socially or felt anxious in social situations. We begin to predict future social failure and avoid interactions and events accordingly.

Research finds that people who are most likely to engage in PEP are those who already hold strong negative core beliefs about themselves (eg. No one is interested in what I have to say) and those who hold positive core beliefs about the process of worrying (eg. Worrying helps me solve problems). Unfortunately, when we engage in PEP, we are feeding our minds what seems like proof that all those negative beliefs are actually true while withholding evidence that might disconfirm those beliefs. We create a closed mental loop that selectively attends to details that support the ideas that we are socially inept or unwanted. We then rehearse those ideas, store them in our long-term memory and later retrieve them during future social situations. And because we also believe that worrying is a process that can help to fix things, we play that closed loop on repeat, ad nauseam.

Aside from making us feel worse about ourselves, the major problem with PEP is that it is often an inaccurate portrayal of what happened during the social event. Rather than the TRUTH label our mind ascribes to these negative playbacks, it’s rarely clear whether something actually went wrong in most social situations. A yawn, a glance off to the side, a pause in conversation – all are ambiguous clues that are interpreted through our existing negative lens. Left on autopilot, our attention will focus on finding support for these negative core beliefs and filter out anything else it finds “irrelevant.” Thus, the yawn becomes a sign that “I’m boring,” and the glance is seen as proof that “No one is interested in what I have to say.” While it is equally likely that a yawn or a glance have significance that is entirely unrelated to us, we co-opt those details in service of our own negative core beliefs, thus feeding the vicious cycle.

What to Do When You’re Stuck in a Cycle of Post-Event-Processing

Woman looking forward at us

1. Name it.
Rather than passively letting PEP live rent-free in your mind, clearly name what is happening. Simply stating, “This is PEP and of course it showed up right after I was in a social situation.” Treating the thoughts as expected habits helps to undermine their accuracy.

2. Normalize it.
Everyone replays things they said or awkward moments in their mind. However, people with anxiety tend to overvalue their thoughts and assign significance to negative thoughts. For example, “If I’m thinking that my comments were ridiculous then it must be true.” If we can notice those thoughts as mental habits rather than a declaration of TRUTH, we have a greater chance of shifting our attention to something more valuable in our lives.

3. Challenge it.
Challenge the usefulness of PEP in your life. Rather than engaging in mental gymnastics to “figure out” how bad the situation really was, remind yourself that ruminating the next day doesn’t help you stay connected to and engaged with others. Focusing on the process of worry rather than whether the content is objectively true can help you sidestep the quicksand of PEP. Challenging the process doesn’t make those thoughts go away, but it helps us choose what we want to place at the forefront of our attention. We can, instead, choose to mindfully attend to our environment in the present moment rather than dwelling on our mind’s interpretation of the past. By choosing to be proactive about what we pay attention to, these habitual negative thoughts gradually wield less power over our attention, memory and beliefs about the self.

Written by Monique Reynolds, PhD

NSAC Montgomery County, Maryland / Northern Virginia

For further information about the author and their clinic, click here.

How to Get Help for Social Anxiety

The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) is an association of independent Regional Clinics and Associates throughout the United States with certified cognitive-behavioral therapists (CBT) specializing in social anxiety and other anxiety-related problems.

Find an NSAC Regional Clinic or Associate which is licensed to help people in the state where you are located.

Places where NSAC Regional Clinics and Associates are Based

ARIZONA: Phoenix ● CALIFORNIA: Bixby Knolls ● Long Beach ● Los Angeles ● Newport Beach / Orange County ● San Diego ● San Francisco ● Santa Barbara ● Silicon Valley / San Jose ● COLORADO: Denver ● CONNECTICUT: Avon ● DELAWARE: Coastal Delaware ● DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Washington, DC ● FLORIDA: South Florida ● IDAHO: South Central Idaho ● ILLINOIS: Chicago ● Chicago Associate ● IOWA: Des Moines ● KENTUCKY: Louisville ● MARYLAND: Baltimore ● MASSACHUSETTS: Western Massachusetts ● Children & Teens ● MICHIGAN: Kalamazoo ● MISSOURI: St. Louis ● MONTANA: Bozeman ● NEW JERSEY: North Jersey ● NEW YORK: Brooklyn ● New York City ● Staten Island ● NORTH CAROLINA: Asheville / Western North Carolina ● PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia ● Pittsburgh ● TEXAS: Houston / Sugar Land

Social Anxiety Self-Help Books by NSAC Therapists

Overcoming Shame-Based Social Anxiety & Shyness: A CBT Workbook
by Larry Cohen, LICSW, A-CBT
— NSAC cofounder and Chair
— Representing NSAC District of Columbia

Social Anxiety for Dummies by Laura Johnson, LMFT, LPCC, A-CBT
— Representing NSAC Silicon Valley / San Jose

Click here for more information about these and other CBT books by NSAC therapists.

Written by,
Dr. Monique Reynolds, PhD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
National Social Anxiety Center – Montgomery County, Maryland / Northern Virginia

This entry was posted in Blog, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, pandemic, Relationships, Rumination, Social Anxiety and tagged anxiety, CBT, cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, social anxiety, social anxiety baltimore, social anxiety disorder, social anxiety therapy, social connection, social phobia. Bookmark the permalink.

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← DARE TO DREAM: USING AN OUTCOME PICTURE TO CONQUER YOUR SOCIAL ANXIETY
SOCIAL ANXIETY ON THE JOB: FEAR OF JUDGMENT IN THE WORKPLACE →

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DISCLAIMER: The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) exists solely to promote evidence-based treatment for social anxiety, and education about social anxiety. NSAC is not a group psychotherapy practice, and does not provide any psychotherapy services. NSAC assumes no liability for its regional clinics’ work or practices. Books, essays, articles, posts, audio and video recordings on this website all reflect evidence-based research. The views contained therein are those of the authors, and do not necessary reflect the views of NSAC as an organization.

How to Get Help for Social Anxiety

The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) is an association of independent Regional Clinics and Associates throughout the United States with certified cognitive-behavioral therapists (CBT) specializing in social anxiety and other anxiety-related problems.

Find an NSAC Regional Clinic or Associate which is licensed to help people in the state where you are located.

Places where NSAC Regional Clinics and Associates are Based

ARIZONA: Phoenix ● CALIFORNIA: Bixby Knolls ● Long Beach ● Los Angeles ● Newport Beach / Orange County ● San Diego ● San Francisco ● Santa Barbara ● Silicon Valley / San Jose ● COLORADO: Denver ● CONNECTICUT: Avon ● DELAWARE: Coastal Delaware ● DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Washington, DC ● FLORIDA: South Florida ● IDAHO: South Central Idaho ● ILLINOIS: Chicago ● Chicago Associate ● IOWA: Des Moines ● KENTUCKY: Louisville ● MARYLAND: Baltimore ● Montgomery County ● MASSACHUSETTS: Western Massachusetts ● Children & Teens ● MICHIGAN: Kalamazoo ● MISSOURI: St. Louis ● MONTANA: Bozeman ● NEW JERSEY: North Jersey ● NEW YORK: Brooklyn ● New York City ● Staten Island ● NORTH CAROLINA: Asheville / Western North Carolina ● PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia ● Pittsburgh ● TEXAS: Houston / Sugar Land

Social Anxiety Self-Help Books by NSAC Therapists

Overcoming Shame-Based Social Anxiety & Shyness: A CBT Workbook
by Larry Cohen, LICSW, A-CBT
— NSAC cofounder and Chair
— Representing NSAC District of Columbia

Social Anxiety for Dummies by Laura Johnson, LMFT, LPCC, A-CBT
— Representing NSAC Silicon Valley / San Jose

Click here for more information about these and other CBT books by NSAC therapists.

Standing Up for Marginalized Persons

There is rising violence, abuse and discrimination in the United States directed against Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, women, LGBTQ persons, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) stands for the welfare, dignity and equality of all people, regardless of individual differences and societal standards. In all our clinical and educational work, NSAC stands against racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia and all other forms of bigotry and abuse.
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