Personality Makeover
Web MD Feature Do you break into a cold sweat just
thinking about walking into a room of strangers? Do you feel faint
when speaking in front of a group of coworkers? If those scenarios
sound familiar, don't despair. Doctors are convinced that there are
ways to quiet those butterflies in your stomach and put your
anxieties to rest while adjusting your personality in ways more
supportive of your own well-being.
Your unwelcome personality traits, from shyness to anxiousness to
aggressiveness, may have started in childhood and can last for
decades. But with proper treatment, you can put most of them behind
you. "The earlier you begin treatment, the more amenable these
traits are to change," says clinical psychologist John R. Walker,
PhD, director of the Anxiety Disorders Program at St. Boniface
General Hospital in Winnipeg, Canada.
To successfully make personality changes, however, you need to be
motivated to do so, says psychotherapist Susan Maxwell, MA, MFT, of
West Los Angeles, Calif. "Traits like stubbornness, a bad temper,
and being argumentative may be harder for a person to change because
they can become so much a part of the personality, and some people
may not see them as negative. There might be a payoff for them to
keep these traits."
Your personality characteristics can become problematic when they
interfere with normal daily functioning or produce a great deal of
distress. Though periods of anxiety, for example, are quite normal
now and then -- perhaps when you're nervous about difficulties at
work -- millions of Americans are bothered by so-called generalized
anxiety disorder (GAD), where they worry constantly, month after
month, year after year, that something terrible is right around the
corner.
"There can be a snowball effect," says Robert Puff, PhD, a clinical
psychologist in Brea, Calif. "If you don't deal with the anxiety, it
builds up and only gets worse. In any city block in the U.S., you
can find at least one person who has become so 'paralyzed' by his
anxiety that he can't leave the house. Over many years, these people
have never dealt with their anxieties, even though they're very
treatable."
Social phobia or extreme shyness is one of the most common
anxiety-related personality characteristics. Like hair color,
shyness is a trait that is influenced by genetics. People might
start out life with a temperament prone to social anxiety, says
Walker, author of Triumph Over Shyness.
If shyness is a dominant part of your personality, you might feel
uncomfortable, tremble, perspire, or even become physically sick in
social situations. Yet of the estimated 10% of Americans who suffer
from social phobia at some time in their lives, only a relatively
small number ever seek help.
Whether in adults or children, shyness often can be conquered with
either talk therapy (psychotherapy) or medications. "If someone
comes to our clinic for help, I often recommend that they try the
treatment that they prefer first, and see how far it takes them,"
says Walker. "If they need additional help, they can always add
another treatment. Research shows that both kinds of therapy are
about equally effective."
If you're shy, your doctor might recommend group therapy, which can
be a terrifying thought for someone who becomes anxious just being
around people. But group treatment can help you develop confidence
around others and eliminate any feelings that you're the only social
misfit in the world.
If you turn to medication for help in changing your personality
traits, your doctor may prescribe one of the drugs -- Paxil, for
example -- approved for treating social phobia or anxiety. "In many
instances, medications can be an enormous help for people with
anxiety," says Maxwell.
Says Walker, "Some patients say that they're prepared to stay on
these medications indefinitely, even for the rest of their lives.
When patients do stop taking them, a significant number experience a
return of their symptoms, so it's best to go off them under medical
supervision."
Some personality traits, such as anger, aggressiveness, and
hostility, may be hazardous to your physical health, and thus
successfully managing them might keep you out of the doctor's
office. In a study presented at an American Heart Association
meeting in April 2002, CDC researchers reported that among more than
12,000 men and women, anger and exhaustion increased the likelihood
of heart attacks or sudden cardiac death. Separate research at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that people prone
to anger had a threefold greater risk of having a heart attack than
the least anger-prone individuals in the study population.
"A good analogy is to think of a bad cut which, if ignored, can
become infected and develop gangrene," says Puff. "If you have a bad
emotional cut instead -- let's say that you hate your job, or you're
angry with your spouse -- if you ignore and don't treat those
emotions, they'll become 'infected' as well, and can produce medical
problems such as headaches, ulcers, and high blood pressure."
What's the path to healing for a personality susceptible to anger
and hot-headedness? Puff, author of Anger Work: How to Express Your
Anger and Still Be Kind, recommends appropriate expression of your
feelings. Keep a journal, he suggests. Take walks, talk about your
angry feelings with a psychotherapist, and forgive yourself for past
transgressions.
Maxwell advises people not to expect immediate results when trying
to make changes in their personality. "You may have had a lifetime
of behaving in certain ways," she says. "So changes won't happen
overnight. But take stock of the progress you're making, and be
patient." |
