From Library Journal
Social anxiety disorder or social phobia (SA/SP), the intense, and incapacitating fear of social interaction, is the third most common psychiatric disorder (after depression and alcoholism). Dayhoff, a social psychologist, author (How To Win in a Tough Job Market), and lecturer who has overcome SA/SP herself, has written a comprehensive self-help guide for sufferers. Dayhoff reviews current research and theories about the origin of SA/SP, but her focus here is on practical ways to recover. She presents step-by-step plans for learning social skills for conversation, dating, job hunting, and networking; gives concise and clear information on such issues as how to access professional help, what to expect during the first session, and what happens in group therapy; outlines the benefits and pitfalls of medication; discusses complimentary therapies; and offers suggestions for finding financial assistance and social support. She also provides a list of resources. SA/SP sufferers and their friends and relatives will find this book helpful. Recommended for popular psychology collections in public and consumer health libraries.-Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., CA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Stefan G. Hofmann, Ph.D., Director, Social Phobia Program, Boston University
"Dr. Dayhoff has done a remarkable job researching the current literature on social anxiety and its disorder. The text is well-written and comprehensive and I enjoyed the use of humor. I hope this book will help people suffering from this debilitating disorder to come out of the closet."


Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D., Director, Anxiety Clinic of Arizona
"Finally here's a book that deals with social anxiety from the insider's perspective on this long-neglected anxiety problem. Because Dr. Dayhoff has lived through social anxiety herself, she is able to comprehensively cover both the personal concerns of sufferers and current research and treatment options. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand and work toward overcoming social anxiety."


Laurie Schloff, Director, Executive Training, The Speech Improvement Company, Boston, MA
"Diagonally-Parked in a Parallel Universe will be a significant addition to my professional library. Dr. Dayhoff includes research and practical information about every aspect of social anxiety. My colleagues and I are especially grateful for the chapters on blushing, sweating, and physiological symptoms. We've been looking for this kind of complete information for a long time. As a communication coach who frequently works with clients who have fears and anxiety, I appreciate Dr. Dayhoff's work enormously. Congratulations!"


- Albert Ellis, Ph.D., President, Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
* "[Dr. Dayhoff] has done an excellent job of covering...social anxiety, and [her] book will be valuable to both therapists and self-help readers. I definitely recommend it."


- Ronald M. Rapee, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Macquairie University, Australia, author of Overcoming Shyness and Social Phobia: A Step by Step Guide
* "Signe Dayhoff combines the best of both worlds - the knowledge and expertise of the professional and the insight and understanding of the consumer and communicates these strengths to her reader. As an ex social phobia, Dr. Dayhoff's empathy and her understanding of the struggles of the person with social phobia shine through in every chapter. The reader...will benefit from the warmth...combined with the most up-to-date expert knowledge. This is a winning recipe."


- Richard G. Heimberg, Ph.D., editor of Social Phobia: Diagnosis, Assessment, and Treatment, Director, Social Phobia Program, Temple University
* "I love the title! I very much like Dr. Dayhoff's tone in 'speaking' to her readers and what she has done!"


- Mark R. Leary, Ph.D., author of Social Anxiety, Psychology Dept., Wake-Forest University
* "I'm delighted that Dr. Dayhoff is taking what we know about social anxiety/social phobia to the public."


- Lynne Henderson, Ph.D., Director, The Shyness Clinic, Menlo Park, CA
* "This is a highly readable book and gives good concrete examples and exercises. I particularly like the part about how to find a suitable therapist or treatment setting. That can be a real challenge for shy people. I am happy to endorse this book."


- Carleton W. Kendrick, Ed.M., LCSW, nationally-known family therapist, Medfield, MA
* "Dr. Dayhoff's book blows the lid off of SA/SP. Other books on the topic have been research and treatment-oriented. This compelling and insightful volume takes us into the 'belly of the beast.' Through her own first-person accounts and her interviews with hundred of fellow SA/SP sufferers, she gives us a long-overdue understanding of the often debilitating, misunderstood (this isn't about just being shy) nature of SA/SP. ...Her book delivers the empathetic guidance and key strategies vital to recovery. It also gives family and friends the tools necessary to assist in this recovery process."


- Jeffrey Lant, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Worldprofit
* "If you are one of the millions of people who suffer from terrible anxiety and social fears, this astonishing book comes just in time. Not merely a book, it is a plan to change your life...to enable you to take your life back. Dr. Dayhoff doesn't just understand the problem, she offers you one useful tip after another to enable you to be the person you want to be. Reading this timely, inspiring, practical book begins as an act of faith in yourself, but ends as a joyous affirmation in the vibrant possibilities of your own life!"


Book Description
"Dear Social Anxiety Sufferers (Your Friends and Family), Everyone has experienced fleeting anxiety in social situations. But perhaps your self-consciousness intensely insinuates itself into one or more important aspects of your everyday life. If so, you likely suffer from the agonizing pangs of social fear. Perhaps you dread meeting people, giving a speech, using a public restroom, eating in public, talking to your boss, or having your social skills or work observed or your competence assessed. Or perhaps you feel threatened in new social situations where you don't know the rules, avoid such situations altogether, or just want to escape. We all experience social anxiety a little differently yet we're all riding the same skittish horse. When our social fears are intense and persistent, we have social anxiety disorder/social phobia (SA/SP - "sasp" for short). This means every day we're forced to confront the pain of being in the spotlight, evaluated, or being embarrassed by the very social situations we long to embrace. Socially we find ourselves on the periphery of life's dance, trying to follow the choreographed patterns and rhythm, but usually seeming to be one beat out of synch, zigging when we should zag. Often feeling like the butt of a cosmic joke, we see ourselves as the ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from bumper to bumper, missing targets, and always on the verge of "tilt." This is being diagonally-parked in a parallel universe. Clinically too, having SA/SP puts us in another dimension. Even though SA/SP is the most common anxiety disorder and the third most common psychiatric disorder after depression and alcoholism, it's the least-diagnosed, least-widely understood, and most under-treated. Few mental health professionals are well-versed in the condition or its treatment even as the number of sufferers continues to increase. Making our situation worse, most of us with SA/SP don't know we have a treatable disorder, that we're not "just shy," and that we can and need to get help. But even when we understand this, we're often reluctant to seek professional help because we're ashamed of the fear and worried that our complaints won't be taken seriously. Then, when we finally do muster the courage to do it, we're often hobbled by the very anxiety for which we seek help: Talking with and being evaluated by others. Together, these factors help keep this major health problem nearly invisible. This comprehensive book was written to show you how you can: *Significantly and effectively alleviate your SA/SP pain; *Significantly improve your daily functioning; and * Effectively work toward your potential. You benefit from the uniqueness of my perspective. I'm both a social psychologist working in the areas of social and personal effectiveness, interpersonal and presentation skills, and anxiety management and someone who has struggled for 22 years to successfully overcome SA/SP. (I used to worry endlessly about what others might think about me and my not meeting their expectations.) As a result, I understand how it feels to be living- and working through this often-incapacitating disorder and where we SA/SPers need to specifically concentrate our efforts to improve our lives. You benefit from my knowledge of SA/SPers' concerns, issues, and desires - the result of my two years of talking with and listening to SA/SPers online via lists, news groups, and chats. You benefit from my research, teaching, consulting, training, and coaching experience, as well as my association with professionals in the SA/SP trenches. To make your SA/SP more understandable and amenable to change, this book provides you with not only the theories and salient research on its origin, triggers, and maintaining mechanisms, but also a broad range of standard and alternative clinical approaches, life strategies, motivational exercises, and empathy. And because I know from extensive experience that your having exercises just thrown at you isn't likely to help you empower yourself and succeed, this book takes you back to square-one. It gives you the psychological preparation you need to jump-start, enable, and maintain your recovery process. Because we SA/SPers tend to have difficulties with clinicians, this book takes the mystery and risk out of locating and talking to them and guides you through the process: From initiating your search to surviving your first appointment. It tells you what to expect and how to prepare for it. Because we SA/SPers struggle with presenting ourselves socially (whether communicating, socializing, dating, or finding a job), this book addresses each significant life activity, breaks it down into sequential, digestible chunks so you can absorb, assimilate, and achieve it. And, because the Internet has great importance and value for SA/SPers as one of the few means of establishing relationships and comfortable communication we have, the book pinpoints the services and resources available for those with SA/SP. Since how you think, feel, and behave determines how you interact with your environment (and conversely), this book focuses on your perceptions, emotions, beliefs, and self-presentation. Using real-life stories, typical problems, and their solutions, the user-friendly format takes you logically, incrementally, step-by-baby-step through the multiple-level processes of your recovery. Through concise explanations, thought questions, self-quizzes, and exercises, you systematically develop and apply your cognitive and behavioral strategies to achieve your recovery goals. In this process you'll assess your social anxiety, determine where you're headed, how to get there, and how you'll know when you've arrived. You'll act as a scientist doing experiments. You'll learn, practice, and apply new skills that will constructively change the way you think about and cope with not only your SA/SP but also the world outside yourself. You'll see yourself make positive changes. Using this book's clinically-proven methods, you can reduce your: * anxiety and fear * depression * negative thinking * anger * loneliness * procrastination * shame and embarrassment and increase your: * motivation to make change * confidence and self-esteem * ability to handle stress * initiating and maintaining conversations * problem solving * decision making * expressing yourself appropriately * patience * listening to others * social effectiveness * dealing with criticism * dating * networking * creating your own job and career opportunities * understanding of social anxiety, yourself, and others. However, just reading this book isn't likely to ameliorate your SA/SP any more than just watching others exercise will cause you to lose weight and tone your body (although awareness may provide important identification, hints, and hope). The book's recovery program is action-oriented, requiring your active, committed, persistent participation in order for you to alter all those factors contributing to your SA/SP: Your automatic fear arousal, negative thoughts, mistaken beliefs and assumptions, unrealistic expectations, and counter-productive behaviors. Note: As much as we all may wish it to be true, there is no finger-snapping, lamp-rubbing, "Shazaam!" magical solution to SA/SP. It took many factors interacting over many years to bring you to your present state. So recovery will not be instantaneous. But if you take the time to make the necessary structured effort toward recovery (whether that includes therapy, medication, or both), you will quickly begin to experience small but significant changes in your thoughts, feelings, and behavior - glimpsing what it'll be like "without SA/SP."


From the Publisher
Up to 20 million people in the U.S. alone feel anxious or self-conscious in social situations - from work to sex. As a result, they may be less productive, under-educated, financially dependent, and lack personal relationships. Two years of research by Dr. Dayhoff with social phobics has shown that they are desperate for self-help materials which fully address their fundamental needs and wants. Diagonally-Parked in a Parallel Universe is expertly designed to meet those needs. Comprehensive and in-depth, this self-help book is the insider's scoop on social anxiety. Written with humor by a psychologist and ex-social phobic, it provides not only systematic and clinically-proven methods but also a life-strategy approach for successfully coping with social anxiety. It has already received high marks from anxiety researchers, clinicians, and anxiety sufferers alike. This book is a winner! - Robert N. O'Donnell, Effectiveness-Plus Publications


From the Author
Have you ever suffered the agonizing pangs of self-consciousness about being on public view or the center of attention? Have you ever been afraid of being evaluated, making a mistake, feeling incompetent, humiliated, and being rejected? If you have, you know what it's like to feel "diagonally-parked in a parallel universe." First labeled in 1987, social anxiety is not only the most common anxiety disorder but also the least diagnosed, least widely understood, and most under-treated. I struggled with it for years. I hid when the doorbell or telephone rang and choked and blanked out during presentations, before I discovered this fear and avoidant behavior had a name and an effective treatment. I'm living proof that using Diagonally-Parked's life-strategy approach you can significantly alleviate your social anxiety, significantly improve your daily functioning in all areas of your life, and effectively work toward your potential. It's important that you always remember: Your social anxiety isn't your fault. You didn't create it. It is merely an over-expression of your sensitivity, empathy, and imagination. These are special gifts to be valued, nurtured, and cultivated. You CAN learn how to make them work for you, not against you. You CAN learn how to delight in them and become both personally and socially effective. I enthusiastically invite you to join me on the yellow brick road to being "parallel-parked in a parallel universe." - Your recovered friend, Signe


About the Author
Signe A. Dayhoff, Ph.D., a Social Psychologist with Clinical-Counseling training, is president of Effectiveness-Plus, trainers and consultants in interpersonal and presentation skills, social and personal effectiveness, and anxiety management. She is also founder of Effectiveness-Plus Publications which produces educational, self-help, and training materials in interpersonal communication, effectiveness, impression management, and social anxiety. Author of five books, including *Create Your Own Career Opportunities* and *Decision Making For Managers,* she has had over 100 newspaper and magazine articles published. In addition to working on research projects at M.I.T. and Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, she has taught psychology at Boston University and University of Massachusetts. She continues to give presentations, seminars, and speeches nationally.


Excerpted from Diagonally-Parked in a Parallel Universe: Working Through Social Anxiety by Signe A. Dayhoff. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
CHAPTER 1 "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!" "He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode off in all directions." (Stephen Leacock, Nonsense Novels, 1911) Joanna's tale Joanna's heart galloped, the surging blood thundering in her ears, painting her face and neck crimson. The butterflies in her knotted stomach were flapping their wings with greater force as the time drew near. Sweat trickled down her sides as her underarms opened their pores and oozed. She was sure everyone could see her soggy, wrinkled shirt, even with her jacket on. Perched on the edge of her chair in her college English class, 35-year-old Joanna had started the count-down for the instructor's call for the students' five-minute presentations to begin. It was always the same. Whenever she had to speak before a group, her mouth instantaneously became parched. Her tongue stuck to her hard palate. Words caught in her throat. And those incomprehensible phrases that managed to escape, submerged the audience in a tidal wave of croaked stutters and stammers, while she gasped for breath, quaking. You a mess, girl, she chided herself. Joanna knew she couldn't present for even five minutes without looking like a laughingstock. Her mindless trepidation was one reason she was still in the process of trying to get through school. Fear of public speaking seemed to malevolently greet her in every other subject, rendering her unable to stick with one major and finish her college degree. Just standing before the group of 19-year-olds reduced her to shimmering guava jelly. Having to speak on top of that totally liquefied her resolve. She already knew how the audience would respond: They'd either look disgusted at this pathetic old person or smirk and snicker at the absurdity of her trying to pull it off. Once again she'd be embarrassed, humiliated. Every last one of them, including the instructor, would write her off as being weird, incompetent, or both. Either way, she grimaced, I'm a failure. Like a coyote-cornered rabbit she felt on the verge of panic...again. Something primitive, ancestrally-wired in her brain, made her want to run, flee, escape. But, no, she couldn't do that. Crazy behavior like that would only draw attention to herself. Joanna mulled it over. A room this packed is a minefield - not something to navigate in a hurry. She chewed her lip and sighed. Maybe I can find another excuse to get me out of the rest of the class period and doing the presentation. But as she sat jiggling her crossed leg, her mind was blank. Compounding her immediate distress was the knowledge that she needed to do this presentation for her grade. She'd already skipped the others, one way or another, leaving her teacher, who'd tried to talk with her about it, with no other conclusion than Joanna just didn't care. And her grade-point average, which she'd struggled to keep high despite these self-presentation obstacles, depended on her doing well in this class. But to Joanna it was a rattlesnake roundup from the perspective of the snake - a lose-lose situation. At this point she couldn't tell which failure was worse. As she bounced her leg under her desk, her foot brushed her book bag which fell open, revealing the fifth of Jack Daniels she'd stashed there for emergencies. A fleeting flash of relief played across her face. Her eyes drinking in the label gave her courage. She grabbed the bag and its precious cargo, took a deep breath, then cautiously threaded her way to the door. Once outside the classroom, she bolted for the restroom. After a couple of healthy swigs, Johanna felt a warming calm wash over her. She was alone, away from scrutinizing eyes. Her hyperventilation was fading in the glow. I've got to find some way to make it work out, she sighed dispiritedly. Her heart palpitations were leveling off too. Sinking to a sitting position on the gray tiled floor, Joanna leaned against the wall and took another drink. * * * Barry's tale With knuckles showing white, Barry finally dragged himself to the Lucky U singles' bar on Saturday night It had taken him months of pep talks and false starts to steel himself to do it. At twenty-eight, slim with Dylan McDermott intensity, he still had never really dated. Searching his memory, he chuckled and shook his head. After all, you can't count the time my mother arranged for me to take Judy Jones, a 9th-grade classmate and next door neighbor, Christmas caroling with our church group. And, yes, much to his chagrin and embarrassment, he confided, he was still a virgin. He didn't date because approaching women was like circumnavigating the globe in a kayak, not something a sane person would contemplate. He didn't know the "rules of the game," hadn't read the latest prescription, and he was sure that the women at Lucky U would catch the scent of his inadequacy the moment he crossed the threshold and be lying in wait for their prey. In the movie he played and replayed in his mind he saw them in groups, scrutinizing each male who walked by, sizing him up, ticking off his pluses and minuses, putting him in the "save" or "discard" pile. And if he didn't stack up to their high standards, he was certain they'd make sure he knew it. Barry was convinced they'd take one look at him, and, without so much as a word, label him a geek: An object of derision and laughter in everyone's eyes. As he stood at the bar in his freshly pressed chinos, oxford cloth shirt, with a Micheloub in hand, he fantasized about having a magic lamp. One rub and - poof! - he'd have mentally downloaded the "Winner's Dating Manual." Another rub and he'd be so cool he was hot. He began to survey the crowd. All I really want, he thought, is to meet someone nice. Someone who'd appreciate my thoughtfulness and sensitivity. Hey, he wanted to shout, I don't see women as notches in my belt or slabs of beef in a meat locker. But every time he spotted someone who might fill the bill, his indecisiveness punched him in the gut and his thoughts of failure cemented him to the ground. I can't talk to her, he'd respond plaintively. What would I say? I always sound so dull and stupid when I try. Before I can get out what I want to say, she'd get bored and leave. Nobody really wants to listen to me..and I can't blame them. Even when a woman returned his gaze and his infrequent, tentative smile, like the vivacious assistant in marketing at his company, he found himself unable to follow through. It was always the same. His face flushed magenta and then he began to stammer. And when he wasn't blushing, he was agonizing over its prospect and the bad first-impression he was sure he had already made on her. It had him coming and going. When he spied her, even when she was forty-five feet away at the end of the hall, he averted his eyes to avoid meeting her gaze. But with or without eye contact, his face continued to glow in her presence. He was at its mercy. Soon he became so obsessed with the possibility of their meeting that he was ever on the look-out for her, armed with evasive strategies. He waited around corners for her to pass. He took the stairs when she took the elevator. He did whatever he could to try to preempt accidental contact. Suddenly Barry was shaken from his reverie by the three-piece band starting its set. As he turned his attention toward the music, his eyes swept a young woman with long, dark hair, some twenty feet away from him. She was standing and chatting with two other women, but looking directly at him, smiling sweetly. His face became a warning beacon as his heart began to throb. What should I do? he asked himself. Smile back? Go over? And what about the other two women? He began to breathe more rapidly and shallowly. Should I talk to them? Ignore them? What if the one with the sweet smile is trying to play a joke on me? I'd be humiliated in front of everyone. With a laundry list of what-ifs spinning in his head, Barry felt immobilized, glued to the spot at the bar where he stood. * * * What's going on here? Everyone worries occasionally about what others may think of them. Will they like or dislike me...accept or reject me? So it's only natural for us to be concerned about presenting ourselves in social situations in the best light possible. This means we don't wear aluminum foil to work. We don't whistle during a funeral. We don't ride our Harley nude or stop bathing. While this fleeting concern about being evaluated is common, the fear experienced by Joanna, Barry, Joe, Sarah, Harry, and Maria is neither fleeting nor common. Their concerns about being in the spotlight and the adequacy of their self-presentation are more profound. To them the mere possibility of being observed, evaluated, or having their relationships devalued is a threat like being held at gun point. Every time they enter a social situation they perceive as threatening, they feel as though they're walking on a tightrope above the Grand Canyon. Every shaky step is a potential slide into oblivion. Their lives are hanging by each unraveling thread of the frayed rope. Their fear of stumbling makes their misstep even more probable. The winds of public scrutiny buffet them, making them sway precipitously above another social disaster without a safety net. What does it mean? What Joanna, Barry, Joe, Sarah, Harry, and Maria endure is an intense and persistent fear which is out of proportion to the realities of the situation. Their lives are not in danger, but their bodies, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are responding as if they were, urging them to fight or flee. Their arousal system seems stuck in overdrive. They're hypervigilant, alert, and worrying about what "might" happen. Those of us who have experienced this anxiety in social situations, whether in its milder or more severe forms, can strongly identify with Joanna, Barry, Joe, Sarah, Harry, and Maria in this theatrical production. The cast, the props, and the locations may be different, but the story line, the cast's motivation, and play are basically the same: Social anxiety. Like everyone else, those of us with social anxiety often monitor others' reactions to us at an unconscious level, by looking for cues in the social environment to signal how we're being perceived. Of course, it's only human to want to influence or control the impressions we make on others. We want to present ourselves positively and appropriately to make it more likely others won't reject us. Like everyone else we also monitor the effect of our presentation at a conscious level. By monitoring and controlling our self-presentation, we try to maximize the resulting social benefits and minimize the resulting social costs. But unlike everyone else, those of us with social anxiety monitor our impressions to the extent that these self-presentation thoughts predominate, to the exclusion of all others. When we do interact with other people, we tend to behave in ways that reduce the amount of social contact we have with them. We withdraw both physically and psychologically. For example, I used to stand on the outer perimeter of conversations as long as possible, smiling and nodding, hoping I wouldn't have to try to say anything intelligent. As a result, we're more frequently seen as reticent, shy, or introverted. But some of us, because of the kind of work we do, such as my consulting, doing seminars, and teaching, are forced to present a more extroverted face. We have to initiate conversations, speak up at meetings, give talks, and interact with authority figures. This apparent level of social competence, however, doesn't necessarily mean that we aren't working very hard to appear comfortable, outgoing, and adequate. It doesn't mean we wouldn't prefer solitariness and solitude, to stay in our little sanctum sanctorums, cuddled up to our computers, never stepping into the spotlight again. It's important to remember that while we who have social anxiety disorder (hereinafter called "SA/SP") share a lot of similarities, we have a lot of differences too. We're not wearing a one-size-fits-all label. This is because we're unique individuals who've arrived at our current personal state of anxiety through many different paths. Where does anxiety come from? In order to understand SA/SP, we have to first understand anxiety. But we all already know what anxiety is. It's that thing that a Gallup Poll says 30-40 million Americans suffer, with 15 million suffering severely enough to warrant treatment. It's butterflies in the stomach on our first date or new job. It's that feeling of apprehension about going to the doctor to bare our souls and our anatomy. It's worry about whether we'll be able to take a test, give a report, or buy the car we need. It's being faced with conflict that's so overwhelming and full of dread that we can't go through our usual problem-solving steps to address it. It leaves us without an accurate assessment of the nature of the conflict or an effective plan of action. As a result, in anxiety we experience inaccurate, unrealistic speculation about potential dangers. We maladaptively focus on low-probability events with little or no evidence to support that focus. We believe that what happens or what people do can directly and adversely affect us. We maintain the belief that we are at the mercy of random events and unpredictable individuals, thus needing to be constantly on guard lest others "push our buttons."

SYNOPSIS

Because up to 20 million people in the U.S. alone feel anxious in social situations, from work to sex, Diagonally-Parked in a Parallel Universe provides systematic, proven methods for successfully coping with them.￯﾿ﾽ This comprehensive, in-depth self-help book on social anxiety is the insider's scoop on how sufferers can effectively address their everyday needs and issues.￯﾿ﾽ Written with humor by a psychologist and former social anxiety sufferer, it uses a life-strategy approach which can significantly alleviate sufferers' anxiety and help them achieve their goals and work toward their potential.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Social anxiety disorder or social phobia (SA/SP), the intense, and incapacitating fear of social interaction, is the third most common psychiatric disorder (after depression and alcoholism). Dayhoff, a social psychologist, author (How To Win in a Tough Job Market), and lecturer who has overcome SA/SP herself, has written a comprehensive self-help guide for sufferers. Dayhoff reviews current research and theories about the origin of SA/SP, but her focus here is on practical ways to recover. She presents step-by-step plans for learning social skills for conversation, dating, job hunting, and networking; gives concise and clear information on such issues as how to access professional help, what to expect during the first session, and what happens in group therapy; outlines the benefits and pitfalls of medication; discusses complimentary therapies; and offers suggestions for finding financial assistance and social support. She also provides a list of resources. SA/SP sufferers and their friends and relatives will find this book helpful. Recommended for popular psychology collections in public and consumer health libraries.--Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Albert Ellis, Ph.D., President, Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Dr. Dayhoff has done an excellent job covering...social anxiety and her book will be valuable to both therapists and self-help readers. I definitely recommend it. — Albert Ellis

Laurie Schloff, Director, Executive Training, The Speech Improvement Company, Boston, MA

Diagonally-Parked will be a significant addition to my professional library. ...My colleagues and I are especially grateful...we've been looking for this kind of complete information for a long time. As a communication coach...I appreciate this work enormously. Congratulations! — Laurie Schloff

Stefan G. Hofmann, Ph.D., Director, Social Phobia Program, Boston University

Dr. Dayhoff has done a remarkable job...well-written and comprehensive and I enjoyed the use of humor. — Stefan G. Hofmann

Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D., Director, Anxiety Clinic of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ

Finally here's a book that deals with social anxiety from the insider's perspective...I recommend this book. — Thomas A. Richards

Coleen Louise Lawrence, Online Writing/Intercommunications Specialist, Toronto, Canada