Coping with Blushing
By Professor Robert Edelmann
Book Review of "Coping with Blushing"
Professor Robert Edelmann is a psychologist who specialises in the problems of blushing and embarrassment. This book provides a clear exposition of some of the difficulties experienced by people who are embarrassed by chronic or excessive blushing or simply by fear and anxiety about blushing, as well as giving helpful analysis of the options available for treating blushing or for helping people to cope with it. Professor Edelmann's preferred option, with which I am in agreement, is for a combination of relaxation techniques and cognitive behavioural techniques for helping you to manage and cope with the anxious thoughts that are compounding or creating your blushing rather than for advocating more extreme techniques such as surgery.
The book is divided into 9 Chapters:
1. Embarrassment and blushing
2. What is blushing?
3. Who suffers?
4. Coping with blusing: Some preliminary comments
5. Calming yourself down
6. Re-evaluating and redirecting thoughts
7. Developing confidence
8. Putting the package together and monitoring change
9. Blushing: A personal account.
Professor Edelmann starts off by pointing out that there are differences between simple embarrasment at making a faux pas (i.e. saying or doing something inappropriate or socially inept) and a chronic fear of blushing. If you suffer from excessive blushing or the fear of it then:
- You may experience the fear of blushing even without having committed a social faux pas - you may well get into a state where in coming into certain situations with other people you anticipate blushing in advance
- If you suffer from chronic blushing, the period of blushing may last longer than for other people (perhaps because you are so conscious of it) and
- You may find it difficult to cope with the experience of blushing, whereas for others the fact that they blush may be of no great significance to them.
Edelmann analyses the components of blushing from a physiological viewpoint in Chapter 2 in terms of the dilation of blood vessels as a result of an emotional response (embarrassment) to a situation involving other people. The technical term for blushing he says is "peripheral cutaneous vasodilation". If you are thinking however that his book is going to be a dry scientific account of blushing of not much help to the ordinary sufferer then you will be pleasantly surprised. The book moves on to consider the kinds of people who worry about blushing affecting their life - reflecting on whether they belong to certain personality types - and the writing is illuminated by helpful quotes from sufferers as well as useful exercises to help you assess where you fit in the spectrum of sufferes and whether you suffer more from:
- private self-consciousness (awareness of your thoughts and feelings when you blush)
- public self consciousness (heightened awareness of how you appear to others when you blush)
- social anxiety (anxiety about blushing affecting your ability to manage everyday encounters)
Edelmann then moves on to set out the options for coping with blushing. He does a good job of pointing out some of the difficulties with treatments such as tranquillisers or surgery as proposed solutions to blushing before he sets out the cornerstones of his own cognitive behavioural approach to the difficulty in the chapters on calming yourself down through relaxation techniques and re-evaluating and redirecting thoughts.
Practitioners of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) will be familiar with the strategies Edelmann describes in chapter 6, including keeping a record of episodes of blushing to note their severity and your thoughts when they occur (the form of recording he proposes might perhaps be improved, however, by allowing a column to record actions as well as thoughts in the problem situation). Other practical strategies relating to your thoughts include identifying distorted patterns of thinking such as overgeneralizing (saying things like 'No one blushes as often as I do') or absolutist thoughts ('I always blush', 'I can never enjoy myself'). In line with standard practical cognitive techniques you are then encouraged to ask yourself if you are exaggerating or overestimating in the thoughts that are going through your mind and to try to replace the exaggerations with more moderate and accurate reminders, balanced by recognitions that you may have jumped to conclusions about the responses of others. Try using some of these self talk reminders when you are in a situation where you might normally blush to help keep things in perspective. Also try distracting yourself from excessive self preoccupation by seeking to focus on things or people about you rather than on your own thoughts or appearance.
Chapter 7 then includes useful tips on building confidence - people who are worried about blushing may suffer from low confidence and their anxieties about blushing can damage that confidence and self esteem further, so it is helpful if you can remind yourself of positive features and aspects to stay positive and enhance your belief in your ability to cope.
In Chapter 8 Edelmann reiterates the key points and emphasises the importance of monitoring your progress so that you can evaluate how you are doing accurately, rather than follow a tendency just to focus on perceived or actual times when you feel you have failed.
Chapter 9 sets out a personal account of blushing - not from Professor Edelmann himself but from a sufferer. The account indicates the worries and desperation that can be involved in trying to cover up blushing rather than control it but is followed by awareness and optimism that it is possible to learn to control your blushing and your fear of it and the techniques suggested by Professor Edelmann may well help if you can commit to trying them consistently.
Conclusion
Overall I would recommend this book as a practical and useful introduction to sensible helping strategies for anyone who has experienced chronic blushing or a fear of it. It is written in clear and easy to follow prose with helpful examples, quotations and analysis and it contains useful exercises for any sufferer from blushing to follow to assess their problem and deal with it.
"Coping with Blushing" by Professor Robert Edelmann is available for purchase from Amazon.co.uk. To find out further details, please click on the image below:
Coaching to help you deal with anxieties around chronic blushing:
David Bonham-Carter, the writer of this review is a life coach specialising in stress, anxiety, self esteem and related issues. To read his own analysis of some of the issues involved in anxiety about chronic blushing or to find out about specialist coaching to provide support on this issue, go to: How to Cope with Facial Blushing.