Goldin studies what happens in anxiety sufferers’ brains when they worry. He has found that people with social anxiety are worse at controlling their thoughts than the average person, and it shows in their brains. When confronted with a worry — say, imagining themselves being criticized — the stress center overreacts. When Goldin asks them to change what they’re thinking, the system of attention control is underactivated.
Borrowing from Wegner’s theory of thought control, it’s as if their “operator” is exhausted and cannot point their minds away from the worry. This would explain why people with anxiety disorders are so consumed by their fears — their attempts to push the thoughts away are especially ineffective.
Traditional therapy for social anxiety disorder focuses on challenging thoughts like “There’s something wrong with me” to get rid of the anxiety. This only makes sense if you believe that trying not to think something works. Goldin takes a very different approach. He teaches social anxiety sufferers to observe and accept their thoughts and feelings — even the scary ones. The goal is not to get rid of the anxiety and self-doubt, but to develop a trust that they can handle these difficult thoughts and feelings. If they learn that there is no inner experience that they need to protect themselves from, they can find more freedom in the outer world. When a worry comes up, he instructs the anxiety sufferers to notice what they are thinking, feel the anxiety in their body, and then turn their attention to their breathing. If the anxiety persists, he encourages them to imagine their thoughts and emotions dissolving with the breath. He teaches them that if they don’t fight the anxiety, it will naturally run its course.
— The Willpower Instinct (Kelly McGonigal), Loc. 3311–23
Me.