The trap of social phobia

Unfortunately mind-reading was not taught in my clinical training. 

But if you have social phobia, chances are you believe you are fairly good at mind-reading negative or judgmental thoughts others have about you. And maybe others do have negative thoughts about you, because when you're trying to converse with them, you're so desperate to check you're not doing anything embarrassing that you end up missing what they said.

Self-focused attention is the "engine-room" of social phobia: when we fear others will judge us harshly, we turn our attention towards ourselves to check we aren't doing anything that might be embarrassing or awkward. Unfortunately, the act of turning our attention towards ourselves means we're no longer paying attention to those we're talking to, leading to more gaffes, embarrassing comments, or not knowing what to say, thereby increasing the risk others will judge us negatively.

Social phobia is a terrible disorder for the debilitation it causes; robbing people of the chance to make new relationships, or any relationship. It's also tragic because we will never really know what someone else thinks about us, but we can spend a lifetime worrying about it without appropriate psychological intervention.