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Social phobia, commonly called as social anxiety disorder, is a persistent, irrational fear accompanied by a compelling desire to avoid situations in which a person might act in a humiliating or embarrassing way while under scrutiny of others.
People vary in how often it strikes them or in which kinds of situation. Social anxiety is quite common and people generally overcome it through some personal adjustment without ever going for help. Clinically this is not diagnosed as social anxiety disorder unless this is persistent and recurrent.
- Common social phobias include fears of speaking or eating in public, urinating in public lavatories, writing in front of others, saying foolish things in social situations, moody and anxious about meeting new people and performance anxiety.
- The physiological symptoms include increased heart rate, shortness of breath, dizziness, muscle tension, headache/stomachache. Severe cases of this phobia results in avoidance, escape, shaky voice, freezing, clinging to adults and withdrawal.
This hits people quite early that is mid-teens to early 20s.Studies indicate that social phobia occur in persons who report at least one other psychiatric disorder. Often this is a first onset of phobia prior to the onset of other psychiatric disorders.
Most people cope with it in appropriate ways such as calming themselves or “putting aside” or ”working through” anxiety to focus in a particular task. But when it becomes problematic one has to seek help as it seriously affects the life style. As it strikes early in childhood, if left untreated the child may well carry it up to the middle ages while suffering all through.
Public speaking has been used in a naturalistic challenge model of social phobia. Greater increase in heart rate was observed in people with public speaking phobia than in those with generalized social phobia.
Treatment as social anxiety medication is hardly advisable. It has to be a cognitive or behavioral therapy and the success rate is very high. You just have to be in a actively correction mode as far as your responses to social anxiety situation is concerned. A passive mode of concern would not help you. Please see the anxiety disorder treatment section.