Social Anxiety Disorder vs Shyness - Research Paper Example

Social Anxiety Disorder vs. Shyness Despite the fact that social anxiety disorder is quite common nowadays, it frequently is being mixed up with such thing as simple shyness. Notwithstanding this social anxiety is much more serious problem for people than being shy; it is even possible to say that shyness can be one of many signs of inner social anxiety disorder; however, it can also be a normal part of human personality but not a serious mental problem like social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder is a kind of strong phobia that is characterized by constant fear of different kinds of social communication. The roots of the disorder lie in human fear of being estimated by other people, so people that suffer from social anxiety usually consider themselves as not good enough to be accepted by others and are in panic fear when they need to communicate with people. Thus they usually wish to avoid any possible social situations. The problem may appear in different ways and can be more or less harsh, so some people are being totally influenced by the disorder that its existence doesn’t let them to normally function in society; others have less obvious symptoms of the disorder, and it can be even so well-hidden that they don’t realize having it, but still social anxiety disorder interferes their normal coexistence with other people (Henderson & Zimbardo 2001). Social anxiety disorder can often be confused with simple shyness and, perhaps, it actually exteriorly looks like shyness. The difference is that feelings a person that suffers from social anxiety has are much more complicated and difficult to be trodden down. Shyness is a condition when a person feels certain discomfort to express oneself in public or during interpersonal communication (Biemer 1983). The nature of this feeling can be multiple and include some childhood traumas, low self-esteem, nurture, and natural predisposition. For most people shyness isn’t considered to be a problem because it is normal condition of their behaviour and even a part of their personality and character. However, sociological researches denote that for 40% or people who feel shyness in social situations consider this condition as problematic for their normal interaction with people (Biemer 1983 p. 53). Feeling of shyness is so widespread that psychologists consider it as a kind of epidemic but not a pathological one. Unlike shyness social anxiety is a kind of mental disorder, which means that it creates serious barriers for normal existence in social sphere, especially when it concerns public interaction. Social anxiety could be manifested in multiple ways. First, there are certain physical symptoms of the disorder like sweating and intensive heart beating; another manifestation of the disorder is wrong cognitive perception of other people such as constant thinking of what others are currently thinking about one or worrying that everyone’s looking and judging the person; furthermore, in order to protect oneself from the previous two manifestations of social anxiety the person decides to avoid all the possible situations where he or she is supposed to conduct any kind of communication with other people (Schneier 2003). The last symptom of avoidance is based on strong fear, so people who suffer from the disorder not only are afraid of showing up in places where other people could possibly be but they also can be even scared of talking to somebody on the phone. The reasons why some people start to suffer from the disorder haven’t been precisely defined by now, so psychologists and psychiatrists have multiple versions of origins of social anxiety and mostly they are agreed that the disorder is a consequence of combination of many factors. Some scientists claim that there is a specific genetic inheritance that may cause the disorder. The examples of young children that suffer from social anxiety, even before their actual interacting with society, prove that indeed genetic disposition can be one of the factors (Biemer 1983). Although, there are a lot of cases when social anxiety appears in older age and psychiatrists claim that it might be a result of certain problems in family that the people used to experience in childhood or a consequence of a mental trauma which concerned society and people’s atrocity. The problem of social anxiety disorder is so widespread that it was found to be the third most prevalent psychiatric disorder in the United States (Schneier 2003). The most dangerous thing in social anxiety disorder is that it often can be unnoticed for a long time, so it turns out that there are many people who suffer from it either don’t want to seek for help or don’t even realize that they have some mental disorder (Nardi 2003). Marketing researches on sales encounters revealed that 40% of salespeople face problem of fear in communication with clients. Most of them are happened to suffer from social disorder without knowing that they are having it (Verbeke &Bagozzi 2000). Moreover, even celebrities often have this mental disorder, even though their work is based on constant interaction with people and being in the spotlight. In 2002 United States professional football sensation Ricky Williams revealed that he had a social anxiety disorder and started a huge media company to support people who had the same problem. Many Americans responded to the company and made their voices heard, so the company revealed from 5 to 10 million Americans who had social anxiety disorder and were afraid of demonstrating it (Moynihan 2002). Most of explorations on social anxiety were conducted by psychiatrists and psychologists in clinical conditions with psychiatric patients who had evident symptoms of the disorder. Thus psychiatrists came up with conclusion that the most typical features of a person who suffers from social anxiety disorder are shyness, fear of public appearance and communication in general, desire to avoid any interactions, and panic attacks during unwanted interactions with people. Such symptoms are obviously much broader than simple shyness because the conduct of people with social anxiety disorder seems definitely anti-social. However, later when scientists started exploring the people who had been hiding the disorder they realized that there is another kind of personality of people with social anxiety. Unlike the shy and scared of communication, these people were extremely aggressive and hostile towards others (Kashdan & McKnight 2010). Even though they weren’t shy and scared of communication, still the roots of their aggressiveness during interactions with other people were in their fear to be rejected by society. The new model of behavior explored by psychiatrists questioned the old statistics of social anxiety patients, as their amount could have been much bigger. Thus it turns out that social anxiety disorder indeed may look like shyness but only in one of its implementations because another one looks totally reverse. Notwithstanding that social anxiety disorder can have different implementations, considering the one that is happened to be confused with shyness, it is important to note that shyness and the disorder are quite different in their treatment. First of all, dealing with shyness a person is capable of overcoming it by self-cultivation and constant trainings engaged with quitting one’s comfort zone. Social anxiety disorder in turn cannot be treated by oneself unless the person who suffers from it seeks for special medical treatment. The biggest problem in treating social anxiety disorder is that people usually don’t admit having it and don’t consider themselves as sufferers (Antony & Swonson 2008). However, people who want to overcome their shyness often seek for special assistant and most of psychotherapists’ treating methods are the same that are being used on treatment of social anxiety disorder patients. For instance, one of the most popular approaches in overcoming shyness and treating social anxiety is cognitive behavioral therapy, which suggests patients to erase their harmful beliefs about society and what people think about them and change these into more positive beliefs that would allow them to communicate freely without prejudice about others and themselves. Another approach that is mostly used for treatment of social anxiety disorder patients is psychoanalysis. Furthermore, it also values for its effectiveness in finding the unconscious stimuli of such behaviour. The point is that psychoanalysis deals with different levels of human mind and uses multiple techniques, including hypnosis, which could reveal which past events and memories have created such hostile attitude to communication with people. Moreover, as far as social anxiety disorder is a kind of of mental disease, doctors often prescribe medication treatment for such patients; for instance, one of the most popular remedies against the disorder is antidepressants (Schneier 2003). Anyways, social anxiety disorder requires complex treatment and should be conducted by medical professionals in specific conditions; when shyness can be defeated by long time practice and self-improvement. Thus social anxiety disorder is a serious mental problem that doesn’t let its sufferers to interact with people in society. It has deep roots and probably is even caused by genetic inheritance. When shyness is a kind of human feeling that is characterized by discomfort in communication. Shyness is not a pathologic condition of human mind and can be defeated by trainings and self-cultivation. References Biemer, D.J. (1983). “Shyness Control: A Systematic Approach to Social Anxiety Management in Children”. The School Counselor, 31(1), 53-60. Verbeke, W. and Bagozzi, R.P. (2000). “Sales Call Anxiety: Exploring What It Means When Fear Rules a Sales Encounter”. Journal of Marketing. 64(3), 88-101. Moynihan, R. (2002). “Celebrity Selling: Part Two”. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 325(7358), 286. Kashdan, T.B. and McKnight, P.E. (2010). “The Darker Side of Social Anxiety: When Aggressive Impulsivity Prevails Over Shy Inhibition”. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 19(1), 47-50. Schneier, F.R. (2003). “Social Anxiety Disorder: Is Common, Underdiagnosed, Impairing, And Treatable”. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 327(7414), 515-516. Nardi, A.E. (2003). “Social Anxiety Disorder Has Social And Economic Burden”. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 327(7426), 1287. Henderson, L., Zimbardo, P. (2001). Shyness, Social Anxiety, Social Phobia. In Hofmann, S.G. and DiBartolo, P.M. (eds). From Social Anxiety to Social Phobia: Multiple Perspectives. Allyn & Bacon. Antony, M. M., & Swinson, R. P. (2008). The shyness and social anxiety workbook: Proven, step-by-step techniques for overcoming your fear (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. Read More