Posted by Raul on 4/10/2011, 11:22 pm, in reply to "Re: Feedback on beginners workshop London Sept 2011"

I just want to echo what everybody above has said. First, Andrew and Dan are both genuinely fantastic people. The workshops they run are welcoming, informative, and really help paruesis sufferers (of all severities) to make progress towards beating the condition. The work they do through UKPT is nothing short of incredible. To put this recommendation into a bit of perspective, for anybody considering attending a workshop in the future, my situation was this: On the Friday morning of the workshop I woke up as a gent who was completely unable to 'get started' at a urinal whenever there was another person present in the room and who would lock up mid-session if anybody else walked in (even cubicles were difficult if I thought I could be overheard). By the Saturday evening I was able to pee at a busy public urinal with other 'patrons' on both sides. On the Sunday afternoon I left to workshop to go see a football game at my local pub, and for the first time in years I was able to watch the match in a completely relaxed state (no anxiety about whether there'd be a free cubicle when I needed it, no worrying about when I could sneak out to go before half-time, etc) and then exchanged banter with other fans while peeing into a (completely packed) trough at half-time. Prior to the workshop, if somebody had told me that I could make that much progress in a month, I'd have laughed in their face. To have done it in a weekend is just mind-blowing. Basically, if you suffer from paruesis badly enough to have found this forum, then get booked into a workshop now. E-mailing Andy is a a big, scary step to take (it took me several hours to psych up the courage) but attending the sessions can and will drastically improve your quality of life. Everybody else there is a completely normal human being (I expected weirdos and social outcasts, I met a room full of guys who could not be more pleasant, diverse and normal if they tried). Andrew and Dan run a great weekend, put everybody completely at ease, and make sure that nobody is forced outside of their comfort zone until they're 100% ready. If you're anything like me, you probably think that, on paper, the de-sense sessions sound terrifying and a little bit insane. The truth is that, in practice, they feel completely natural and keep you feeling 100% safe at all times. Nobody at a workshop gets pushed outside of their comfort zone unless they want, and the rate at which you ratchet up the difficulty of your de-sense sessions is entirely up to you. To reiterate, if you're concerned enough about paruesis to be reading this, get yourself to a workshop. Don't suffer with the condition a day longer than you have to. The weekends aren't weird or awkward, the people attending them aren't oddballs, and the change that you can make to your life in such a short space of time is incredible. Once again, thank you to Andy and Dan for doing such great work. You're both inspirational.

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