I think it also depends what the *problem* is. Like, what is good distress improving for, say, fear of abandonment is often excellent avoidance for work anxiety!

... that would be because in few cases is the actual behaviour inherently avoidant or self-caring. The differnce lies partly in the root cause and mostly in the application.

Have you tried workbooks intended for Borderline Personality Disorder? A shrink gave me a DBT workbook (it might have been linehan? I've lost the scans so I'm not sure) once which seemed to make decent distinctions on this - although hard to tell since I am more anxious and dont' *have* many distressors other than work & social anxiety and a bit of perfectionism.