Im also responding to the "do the things you fear" bit: I think you are right. As to why this works for some and worsens it for others, I think that depends on

Im also responding to the "do the things you fear" bit: I think you are right. As to why this works for some and worsens it for others, I think that depends on how you approach this. In my experience these confrontational situations need to strike a certain place between "too easy" and "too hard". It hardly helps to throw people into situations they can't handle again and again. A more gradual approach via small wins is the way to go IMHO, with a focus on avoiding the learned avoidance patterns, heh. There's also the aspect of the perception: one needs to be able to accept small victories and see them as the improvement that they are. But all of this is way easier said than done, especially if you have to deal with it all by yourself. So while I think that you are technically right, I think it's easy to misunderstand for people as "just toughen up" (not implying that's what you meant, but there is this to many people unknown middle part of it that I wrote about).