Video feedback experiment

Video feedback is a powerful tool that can be used to help you challenge your deep-rooted negative images you have of yourself. It allows you to see yourself in action and to compare how you actually look and sound to how you think you look and sound.

A topic that comes up often in WalkTheTalk groups is the feeling of understanding a concept at an intellectual level, but that understanding not translating into ‘getting’ it and being able to feel it. One such example is how you come across.

Studies have shown that people don’t really notice what we think is obvious about ourselves, or at least significantly less than we think. We’ve probably got first hand experience of this, such as walking down the street and noticing but not thinking twice about the person wearing an outrageous costume. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t feel self-conscious doing the same right now.

So back to our experiment. Recording and watching back a video of yourself can be a very helpful experience, as it can help you to challenge your negative beliefs about yourself – such as that you’ll sweat profusely or ‘look’ like you’re being crushed by your nerves.

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Directions

  • Find a buddy within your group or ask a friendly person to help you with the experiment (they’ll need to be happy with the conversation being video recorded)
  • Beforehand, write down what you think you’ll see when you watch back the recording. Use the ‘How I see myself’ part of your social anxiety map to help and be specific: if your negative self impression is that you’ll shake, then ask yourself how that will appear in the video. Keep getting as specific as possible. Score each prediction as before on a scale of 0-100% confidence.
  • Record the video The situation can be whatever you like, but a general conversation is fine. This could be in-person or over a video call. It need only be for a few minutes.
  • Watch the recording back as if you were a fly on the wall. What do you see and what do you hear? Don’t focus on what you feel. How much do you believe the predictions now? Is how you think you come across more noticeable than adopting a safety behaviour would be (such as reading from a script or covering your face)?
  • Repeat if needed or in a different situation.