NLP for social anxiety sweating

[ajohnson2]

I started having facial sweating in job interviews and then in front of my boss in my first job out of college. It was a rough year and ultimately secure wipes helped me literally overnight. When I started using them I saw the immediate impact and no longer had the dreadful anticipation.

Right before this, I was seeing a therapist and the one thing he taught me that I still use to this day is the "swish" method. For 4 years I only had a couple episodes, and more importantly it almost vanished from memory. Through the combination of secure wipes and practicing the swish method before big things like a speech I was 98% free.

Last March, the nervous sweating started back up again. I've been trying a variety of methods but I'm curious if anyone has tried NLP. It turns out the swish method my therapist taught me is actually a NLP method rather than a CBT method. I am starting to see a NLP expert and feel like this might be the key. More so than inner child work, journaling, mindfulness, positive coping statements, and other things I've tried. Thoughts or advice?

 

[CharlesN]

Can you describe what the swish method is? Or NLP or CBT?

I'm not sure most people on here are familiar with any of that.

Thanks,

 

[ajohnson2]

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the standard treatments that therapists use. It involves journaling, talking about one's childhood, practicing relaxation methods, exposure therapy, etc.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a model of thinking that is most famous by Tony Robbins who uses it to cure people of phobias within 10 minutes. The swish method that I learned basically gets you to reprogram meeting people in anxious situations, by grounding it in the feelings when you had complete confidence. Then, you visualize an upcoming social event and bring in the state of confidence. You repeat this 5 or 10 times.

Another question to those of you who had anxiety about sweating, did your anxiety about sweating stop once you took the topical/pill antiperspirant? Did it ever resurface?

 

[ajohnson2]

I wanted to follow up on my experience on NLP after now having completed 5 sessions (10 hours total).

Keep in mind that practitioners will vary, and since I don't have any one else to compare against, I can only assume my practitioner is average.

Most of the tools I've been taught have been somewhat useful. Some of them you just do once and you're supposed to let it set in your subconscious. It's not as "active" in terms of participation as is CBT. A few of the tools I didn't find useful at all but the NLP coach said that is typical. NLP is more of "try a range of tools and use whichever ones work for you"

Here's the kicker. The last month has been the best month I've had since my social anxiety sweating resurfaced 1 year ago. This could be due to a variety of factors including the CBT I've been going to on the side or the support from my fiancee. If you asked me logically how much the NLP has helped I would probably say "somewhat".

In conclusion, I don't know how much it's helped or whether it's a placebo. I'm going to go to one more session and then take a month off from it to see how things go.

If anyone else had any experiences with NLP in social anxiety or sweating specifically I'd love to hear.