How to Overcome Your Fear of Conflict

Key Takeaways

• Exposure therapy helps you face situations that cause anxiety about conflict.
• Start with small situations you can handle and work up to more difficult ones.
• Use assertive communication to express your feelings and set boundaries without being aggressive.

The fear of conflict is common, especially among those with social anxiety. You might worry about saying something that others will disagree with or have general fears about doing things that will annoy or bother other people. This can also lead to people-pleasing tendencies where you put other people’s feelings above your own.

Although avoiding conflict alleviates your anxiety in the short term, in the long term it perpetuates your fear and the belief that you can’t handle situations involving conflict.

Read on to discover ways to overcome your fear of conflict with exposure therapy that you can practice on your own.

Exposure Therapy

One way to gradually overcome your fear of conflict is to face the situations that cause you anxiety. This process is known as exposure therapy and is usually carried out as part of a larger treatment program like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). However, you can practice exposure therapy on your own as part of a self-help plan.

The idea is not to run out and start an argument with the first stranger you see. On the contrary, part of exposure training is to gradually engage in feared scenarios at a pace that you can tolerate.

This means starting with situations that cause you the least anxiety and eventually working up to what causes you the most fear.

You can practice these exposures either in real life (in vivo) or in your imagination to start.

If you find it difficult to construct the exact scenarios that cause you to fear, visualizing them might be the better option. Eventually, however, you will want to experience those situations in real life.

How to Practice It Safely

Unlike other exposures, those involving conflict with others carry the potential to cause other people to become impatient and annoyed. Remember to approach each situation using assertive behaviors (rather than an aggressive stance) and choose situations where there is little risk.

For example, don’t practice conflict exposures with someone who you fear could become overly agitated or violent.

Also remember that the point of these exposures is to increase your ability to tolerate the conflict, and some of your actions may mildly inconvenience others.

Although you might feel like what you are doing is terrible, those on the receiving end will probably see it as a minor issue. After all, these types of interactions happen to all of us in some form every day.

Think about how you would feel or react if you were on the receiving side of being inconvenienced, told “no” when you asked a favor, or confronted when you (accidentally) cut in line. Most likely, you would be temporarily bothered but quickly forget about the incident.

Fear Hierarchy

The following brief list gives you some examples of items that you might place on a fear hierarchy related to conflict with others.

You should create your own list that is tailored to your particular fears and anxiety triggers. Be sure that the list starts with the easiest task and gradually works up to the hardest.

1. Take a long time doing something. Be indecisive when a salesperson is helping you. Parallel park and take a long time doing it. Spend a long time when using an automated teller machine. Use a bunch of coupons at the grocery store or ask them to do a price match with a competitor.
2. Say “no” to something. If a telemarketer calls, ask to be put on a “do not call” list. Say no to a friend who asks too much of you. Say “no” to a coworker who asks you to do more than your fair share of work.
3. Return something or complain about something. Return an item to the store without the receipt. Tell the hairdresser you aren’t satisfied with your haircut and ask for a change. Let your server know that you are not satisfied with your food and request a new meal be prepared. Be careful to choose valid complaints that you can realistically convey.
4. Create a problem. Get to the checkout and realize you don’t have enough money to pay for everything so you have to put an item back. Take an item to the cashier that doesn’t have a price tag. Try to pay with a debit card that you know won’t work.
5. Ask someone to stop doing something. If someone cuts in front of you in line, say something assertive like “Excuse me, the line is back here.” If someone is being bullied, stand up for that person. If you disagree with someone’s opinion, tell them in a polite way.
6. Communicate your boundaries in a relationship. If someone does or says something that makes you uncomfortable, then it is time to let them know. Learn assertive communication techniques to clearly state your position without attacking the other person’s character. For example, “I know you don’t mean to hurt my feelings, but when you say those things about me in front of my friends (provide examples), I feel really embarrassed.” Start with something small to get your footing and gain more confidence each time you do it.

Getting over your fear of conflict with others will take time. Be sure to stay in the situation and fully experience your anxiety instead of choosing to escape. Use positive coping mechanisms to help you through the anxiety. Unless you remain in the situation until your fear decreases you will not learn that there is nothing to fear.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Sars D, van Minnen A. On the use of exposure therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders: A survey among cognitive behavioural therapists in the Netherlands. BMC Psychol. 2015;3(1):26. doi:10.1186/s40359-015-0083-2

2. American Psychological Association. What is exposure therapy?

3. Fang A, Sawyer AT, Asnaani A, Hofmann S. Social mishap exposures for social anxiety disorder: An important treatment ingredient. Cogn Behav Pract. 2013;20(2):213–220. doi:10.1016/j.cbpra.2012.05.003

4. Bandelow B, Michaelis S, Wedekind D. Treatment of anxiety disorders. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2017;19(2):93–107. doi:10.31887%2FDCNS.2017.19.2%2Fbbandelow

By Arlin Cuncic, MA

Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master’s degree in clinical psychology.

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