You don’t need to suffer from social anxiety to feel intimidated and out-of-place at social gatherings of colleagues. I have more than a few clients who dread networking events because they perceive others to be so much more established, knowledgeable, and self-assured. In their own minds they don’t match up and feel badly outclassed. This does not correspond with objective reality. It typically stems from the construction of a self-image associated with childhood experiences of being criticized, invalidated or ignored more often than not. While a long course of trauma-informed therapy can bring healing and a significant upgrade of self-image, not everyone has the time, money or insurance coverage needed for this. What can a therapist say to a client who can only afford a few sessions to solve or at least reduce the intensity of this problem? One therapeutic strategy I have used with some success is to talk about the persona that highly successful people have cultivated and perfected as they move up the ladder of prestige. The persona, a term borrowed and repurposed by Carl Jung, refers to the large masks that actors wore during performances of tragedies and comedies in ancient Greece. Since hillside theatres had steeply sloped rows of seats, many attendees could not make out the facial expressions of the actors, so the actors wore large masks with painted facial expressions visible from a great distance. The mask hid the actors’ real faces but conveyed emotions the actors wished to project to others. Successful people in all professions and occupations appear remarkably confident, self-assured, and bold to their underlings. However, the truth is that this appearance is often largely a matter of persona, a persona that comes to feel ever more real to the person who cultivated it. What I say to my clients about this is that no matter how impressive the persona the person projecting it is just another person underneath – a person with ups and downs, fears, anxieties, concerns, and concealed problems with things like health, money, and relationships. Maybe they are struggling with chronic pain, insomnia, an argumentative spouse or child, depression or burnout. For these reasons it is a mistake to always assume that successful people are better or have it better than you do. In the end we are all just people doing our best to make our way in the world and conceal what ails us so we do not look less able and fulfilled than we want others to know. My advice to my clients is be yourself, don’t pretend to be someone else, and have compassion for yourself and others in a world where life can be unfair, unjust or just plain hard.
