It's not social anxiety. It's a pattern.

16 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this solo video, Dr. Aziz introduces a conceptual framework of four "approval patterns" that underlie various forms of self‑limiting behavior such as social anxiety, people‑pleasing, fear of judgment, imposter syndrome, and the tendency to hold back. He names one of these patterns the "avoider," describing it as the dominant way people hold themselves back when they anticipate negative feedback or disapproval. The avoider pattern reflects a habitual avoidance of expressing true thoughts or taking action due to fear of a negative response.

Chapters

If you're wondering what this pattern is, I have a name for it. I call it fittingly enough, the avoider. And it's one of the 4 approval patterns or approval types that I've seen in doing this work for the last 15 to 20 years with clients. I've seen over the, over the years, whether I help people with social anxiety or people pleasing or holding back what they really want to say, fear of putting themselves out there, fear of judgment, imposter syndrome, that underneath all of these, there's 4 ways that we hold ourselves back when we're not sure if we're going to get a negative response or disapproval. And the avoider is one of the dominant ways.