Laurie Helgoe, Ph.D., is the internationally recognized author of Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength (Sourcebooks, 2008), the first book to reveal that introverts make up the majority—rather than a small minority—of the population. Introvert Power was awarded a coveted Publishers Weekly starred review, and Laurie continues to be moved by the outpouring of grateful responses from introverted readers.
A psychologist of 20 years, and introvert herself, Laurie enjoys the richness of an internally oriented life. She sees desire as a trustworthy guide — one that has taken her from traditional therapy practice to work as a commercial model and actor, to a writing career and five mass-market books (so far), and now to her Book It! literary consulting practice. Through her seminars and mentoring, Laurie is dedicated to helping writers become authors.
She is also a dynamic speaker and trainer. Whether her audience is composed of lawyers, authors, resort owners or psychotherapists, her mission is to help individuals and corporations mobilize the power of desire. She is also committed to changing attitudes as well as environments that are unfriendly to the introvert majority. Laurie is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the West Virginia University School of Medicine.
An avid movie buff, Laurie sees the cinema as a house of meditation. She helps others use movie watching as a practice in stepping back, noticing the artistic quality of their own lives, and appreciating the remarkable stories they are living.
Laurie enjoyed collaborating with her husband, Barron, on The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Raising Boys (Penguin/Alpha, 2008). She was the primary author of The Anxiety Answer Book (Sourcebooks, 2005), and sole author of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Breaking Up (Penguin/Alpha, 2006) and the Boomer’s Guide to Dating (Again) (Penguin/Alpha, 2004). Her books have gone international, with foreign translations into Chinese, Czech, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
Laurie resides in Charleston, West Virginia, with Barron and their two teenage boys. She is grateful for the support of her writers’ group, the Village Writers, and is a frequent patron of Charleston’s independent coffeehouses.
livnlern61 // Jun 26, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Dr. Laurie,
Thank you for writing “Introvert Power”. I can identify with so many examples in your book. When you described how an introvert reacts when reaching the limit at a party, you could have been writing about me personally!
I’m just wondering…what is the difference between just being introverted and having something like social anxiety? I’m not quite clear on this.
Laurie // Jul 2, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Great question, as the two are commonly confused. It helps if you remember that introversion is a healthy preference — something we are drawn to, as opposed to a deficit or form of avoidance. Social anxiety, or social phobia, the label now used in clinical circles, is distressing to the individual and/or interferes with that person’s functioning. Social phobias can occur in introverts as well as extroverts — the latter may crave more social interaction, but feel afraid to go there.
Now where it gets tricky is that healthy introverts do “avoid” certain social situations, but not because they are scared or worried about embarrassment or humiliation (characteristics of social phobia), but because we are BORED with certain social situations (e.g., parties). To further complicate things (sorry), introverts can become overstimulated in high-energy social situations (research shows that our brains have more going on at rest, so we get overloaded more easily), so if we don’t get a chance to pull back and think, we can become anxious and seem socially phobic.
In looking at what is healthy and unhealthy, we need to look at both ends of the continuum. If it is unhealthy to avoid people, it is equally unhealthy to avoid solitude. The latter just doesn’t come with a diagnosis.
Thanks for your question!