What Is Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)?
“Individauals with Social Anxiety Disorder experience significant discomfort in social interactions and have great concern about being embarrassed and judged by others. This social discomfort is experienced as fear and anxiety, and the person typically has physiological symptoms of anxiety. Sufferers often avoid social contact and social situations, which can lead to isolation, dissatisfaction with relationships and difficulty engaging in typical life events.
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Symptoms
Symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder can include:
Fear of situations in which you might be judged
Worrying about embarrassing or humiliating yourself
Concern that you'll offend someone
Fear that others will notice that you look anxious
Avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment
Spending time after a social situation analyzing your performance and identifying flaws in your interactions
Expecting the worst possible consequences from a negative experience during a social situation
Diagnostic Criteria
Fear or anxiety specific to social settings in which a person feels noticed, observed, or scrutinized
Typically the individual will fear that they will display their anxiety and experience social rejection
Social interactions will consistently provoke distress
Social interactions are either avoided or painfully endured
The fear or anxiety are grossly disproportionate to the social situation
The symptoms persist for 6 months or longer
The symptoms cause personal distress and impairment of functioning in one or more domain, such as occupational or interpersonal
Treatment
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT which focuses on graduated exposure to the anxiety provoking social situations can help reduce the symptoms of social anxiety. Patients also learn to restructure their cognitions to better fit the realities of the social situations rather than the unlikely alarming thoughts which they typically have.