Avoidance can also be healthy when it is limited and small scale, creative, appropriate to the circumstances, and for the ultimately greater nonavoidant good of allowing the individual to retreat from uncomfortable, unimportant relationships in order to prevent discomfort in these relationships from spreading to contaminate and destroy potentially important social and personal contacts or one’s entire life.
RETAIN HEALTHY/NORMAL AVOIDANCES
Avoidants should not change simply because others expect them to. They should only make those changes that are right and necessary for them. A husband shouldn’t enter therapy for being an avoidant when the real and only problem is that his wife, the one pushing for him to get help, is a passive-aggressive.
DETERMINE AND ENHANCE YOUR MOTIVATION TO CHANGE
Change, even though possible, is time consuming, difficult, and painful. Therefore avoidants should not attempt to relinquish entrenched avoidant patterns before determining for themselves if the comforts of limits are greater than the discomforts of their limitations.
Motivation is enhanced by focusing on the advantages of nonavoidance (see table 20.1).
Do at Least One Nonavoidant Thing Today
Each day, avoidants should try to think and act in at least one nonavoidant fashion. That might involve just picking up the phone instead
Table 20.1
The Advantages of Nonavoidance
Potential freedom from relational fear
leading to the ability to form durable relationships of intimacy with others so that one comes to
savor pleasurable and rewarding interpersonal relatedness, which also involves
having pleasurable sexual relationships while
firming up a newly developing capacity for the self-realization that comes from forming durable relationships
leading to developing self-pride about one’s new and improved personal and professional achievements, ultimately being able to
leave a meaningful personal, interpersonal, and professional legacy behind.
of letting the answering machine take the call. It might involve keeping one eye always open for who might be looking at and trying to make contact with them so that they can react appropriately to the positive overture. It might involve starting saying hello to strangers, even or especially the ones who probably won’t say hello back. It might mean meeting relational challenges head-on, that is, not with their usual fight/flight responses, but by staying put and resolving relationship problems in place.
Set Specific Goals
An important aspect of setting specific nonavoidant goals involves contemplating what it will be like when they are achieved. Avoidants can ask themselves, what will being nonavoidant feel like? Will things be better when I am connected than they are now with all my disconnects? What will my nonavoidant future be like, one where I am better able to relate, get close, and commit to relationships with friends, and even one significant other? What exactly will it be like to move out of my parents’ home and face the world? Will it be worth all the trouble and anxiety predictably involved? Will I lose my nerve when my parents, as I can expect, respond negatively to my leaving? There are downsides of translating my new nonavoidant philosophy into meaningful action. But what reassurances can I give myself that I can tolerate any or all of them, and what reminders can I give myself about the many upsides that do exist?
Different transactional goals and their underlying causal anxieties require different specific remedies. For example, exposure anxiety has to be resolved if the main goal is to comfortably attend parties and other social events, while anxiety over criticism has to be resolved if the main goal is to become less remote at work by not allowing oneself to be cowed by unsupportive, openly critical superiors, peers, and underlings.
Set Priorities
In setting goals for themselves, avoidants need to determine which avoidant behaviors cause them the most trouble and create the most havoc. Then they have to decide if they want to try to relieve their greatest fears first (even though those are the most difficult to master) or work first with their more moderate fears because though these are not necessarily the ones whose resolution will provide the most comfort, they are at least the ones that are easiest to resolve.
Be Patient
Avoidants must set themselves a realistic accomplishment/achieve-ment timeline based on rational, not irrational (emotional), desire and practical need. That means recognizing that avoidance reduction takes time. Because avoidants didn’t get to be avoidant overnight, they will not become nonavoidant tomorrow. Also, avoidance reduction requires persistence, which is time consuming, and vigilance, which is emotionally draining—with both needed to avoid backsliding should, as often happens, the same fears recur and need to be mastered all over again.
IDENTIFY RESISTANCES TO IMPROVEMENT
These include the questionable assumptions and shaky rationalizations listed in table 20.2.
JOURNAL/SCRIPT YOURSELF AS SUCCESSFUL
Journaling involves recording why one wants to change, including enumerating in writing the virtues of relating over being isolated and the rewards of relating over the acknowledged discomforts of getting close and undergoing commitment. It also involves recording one’s emotional responses, and distinguishing these from one’s realistic
Table 20.2
Resistances to Improvement
I don’t have the time to meet people.
The world is a fearsome place, full of frightening, rejecting people, so why even bother trying to get better?
I have nothing but bad luck, so there is no sense in even attempting to meet anyone good, or good for me.
There aren’t any people worth meeting where I live.
I can’t help my shyness, and no one else can help me become less shy either.
My anxieties and fears are absolute, not relative, based on reality, not on fantasy, therefore I am incurable, for my problem is irremediable.
It’s not my fault that I am an avoidant, it’s my upbringing.
It’s not my fault that I am an avoidant, it’s my chemical imbalance.
My loneliness is preferential. I like to be alone; I value my privacy and independence above all else.
Marriage isn’t right for everyone, and it’s not right for me.
The grapes are sour, for relationships are not all they are cracked up to be.
Some of the best things in life are only available to the isolate, like being able to sleep without being awakened by a partner’s snoring, being able to stay in bed as long as I like, being able to drop my clothes on the floor without anyone complaining about the mess, not having to pay for my partner’s financial excesses, and being able to travel without compromising my itinerary just to give in to someone else’s demands.