Gilmartin’s overwhelming focus on treating love-shys consists of practice dating therapy. With his ideal scenario, six love-shy males and six love-shy females meet as a whole therapeutic group facilitated by a clinical psychologist and support staff. The group sessions include lessons, advice and perhaps role-playing. Near the end of the group session, the facilitator pairs off the men and women and assigns them to go on practice dates. The male is expected to phone the female and arrange the date, which should not be something with little chance for conversation like going to the movies. At the next group session, the participants discuss the details of how the dates went, and the facilitator rearranges the pairs so eventually all possible pairings happen. This practice dating therapy provides the love-shys, most of whom have never dated at all, with a chance to experience interacting with the opposite sex in a semi-controlled environment.

A practical love-shy therapy should structure itself on the basic therapy for overcoming any phobia. Most clinicians use exposure therapy for overcoming typical phobias and anxieties, and it works quite well for simple phobias. Therapists can generally treat most anxiety disorders in a relatively short period of time if they deal directly with the exact anxiety. If you have a phobia of spiders, you need to be slowly and gradually introduced to them in a controlled setting. You learn to handle each level of exposure until your anxiety and fear subsides.

An enterprising therapist could advertise for attractive women to be available. A love-shy male could choose from photographs or brief videos to find the person he was most attracted to and then arrange a therapy session with her....

The session may include the love-shy holding hands with the woman or briefly touching her arm or shoulder. While having a therapist in the room may make the situation strange, I postulate that practicing in front of an audience makes the exercise more realistic and powerful....

This type of therapy, while not nearly as inclusive as practice dating, overcomes practice dating’s logistical problems. Since the beautiful women (or handsome men for female love-shys) are paid, the lopsided male–female ratio is not a problem. Also, this therapy focuses on short-term treatment with useful results from a limited number of sessions, which makes out-of-town love-shy participation possible. Because many non-love-shy men become awkward and shy in the presence of very desirable women, the therapy would not be limited to love-shys.

While I cannot recommend a street drug since the legality, purity, actual molecular composition and proper setting to use it cannot be assured, the serotonin-related drug MDMA, commonly called ecstasy or E, shows promise for love-shys. Many users report diminished social inhibitions and feelings of true empathy and love for the first time and feel a oneness with everything. One love-shy credits MDMA use with overcoming his love-shyness enough for him to marry a great and attractive wife, something love-shys almost never say about any other drug. Before it became illegal some psychotherapists reported that it greatly accelerated the therapeutic process. It has shown initial success in treating post-traumatic stress disorder anxiety in conjunction with talk therapy. I hope that researchers will obtain government approval for trials using ecstasy to overcome love-shyness.

I have been posting a lot of ways to improve one's love-shyness. And most members so far have thought they are too out there or weird. I think most members here have Psychological Reversal so bad that they actually like love-shyness and complaining about it more than having a good life. It's not all their fault; their subconscious is so reversed that bad seems like good and good seems like bad.

The thing that has helped be the most was Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is an accupressure/NLP(neuro linguistic programming)/self-hypnosis technique that helps release negative emotions and beliefs. You can find out more at www.emofree.com.

Also, Magnus, a PUA (don't be a hater), developed an EFT program specifically for guys with relationship problems www.innergametapping.com. He also has his mainstream website www.tapping.com. It was actually Level One of his new products The Tapping Course at www.tappingcourse.com that helped me break through the last bits of love-shy. Two videos in particular, one for independence and the other for false personalities, were pertinent. I have been using this stuff since maybe February 2008 and would be a lot farther if I had not let myself get trapped in the "oneitis" I had.

Another helpful therapy I have been using for almost a year now is Binaural Beats. Binaural beats are two frequencies played in each ear, say, 100hz and 110hz. The brain interprets that as a 10hz signal (below the frequency of human hearing) and the brainwaves start to align with that frequency. 10hz has been shown to release serotonin, which helps with depression. They are not specifically for love-shy, but studies have suggested that Delta frequencies help to reduce anxiety.

Recently I've been studying PUA stuff again, but this time I intend to use what's good and ignore the garbage. So far so good. I went out with the intent of practicing opening, or talking to women, the other day and got good results.

I also bought The Rules of The Game by Neil Strauss and started those challenges. It really pulls you out of your comfort zone.