Social Anxiety, Symptoms and Treatment - Research Paper Example

Social Anxiety Introduction Social anxiety, also known as social phobia is excitability and over sensitivity about the interactions in a society, people and surroundings. People who are victims of social anxiety are always feared to meet the people in the society and they are gambit of the collective interaction. Social anxiety fills the person with negative thought and inferiority complex that if they will go in the public places or meet the people with the pre defined societal norms they will not be able to make it up to the mark. This inferiority complex imbibes all the self confidence of the individuals who are the victim of social phobia and no matter how hard they try they cannot meet the people and interact with the in positive way. With all the interaction and communication skills, still they find problems while interacting with the society because of the lack of confidence and they cannot deliver in time. Social anxiety also gives very negative effects to a person in regards to the interpersonal skills because when an individual will not meet the people and society, the inter personal and communication skills will not be nurtured and it will in turn augment the problems that are playing a key role in the social phobia of the individual. People going through the phobia of social anxiety always think that they are being judged by other people in the negative way and this is the main cause of the depletion of the self confidence from their personality (Crozier and Lynn, 185). Social anxiousness does not go away except proper diagnosis and tot cause identification of the problems and this is to be done at the first priority. As long as the diagnosis will not be done effectively, the person going through this phobia will never be able to get rid of the social anxiety because this is a kind of problem that is increase in a very expositive way. Social anxiety is faced by the victims in almost all the day to day activities. When they go out to buy something, they will not be able to interact with the shopkeeper because they will think that other people around them are being judgmental about them. While making a phone call, in college, workplace and markets they feel themselves short of the self confidence to talk and interact with the fellow human beings. No matter how hard they try to get rid of the social anxiety, they always find them facing the same problem. The main reason behind this phenomenon is the lack of awareness about the social anxiety. There was a time when people did not take it as a proper isease and problem and overlook it by saying it a normal habit that can be taken off by normal day to day practices but after the modern research and proper scientific findings, people are realizing the gravity of the social anxiety and full fledge researches are being made in order to find out the ways to solve this problem as early as possible. According to a study, the social anxiety is very common among the people and every human being experiences the social anxiety at one stage or the other. The normal percentage of people who face the problem of social anxiety is almost 14% to 15 % of the people. There are many misconceptions spread in among the masses about the social anxiety and this is because of the lack of awareness and less education. Many people believe the introverts to be victim of social anxiety. This is not true from scientific and societal perspectives. An introvert is not a victim of social phobia rather He prefers to spend time without any company. That is the part of normal behavior. If someone prefers to work alone just because of the fact that he cannot concentrate on the work in the noisy environments then He will never be considered as socially anxious. Social anxiety is different from being less talkative and interactive. Social anxiety comes into play when a person really feels an internal pressure while interacting with people. For example an introvert might prefer to do less interaction with people just because it is not natural way of going for him but an introvert may want to be in the public and enjoy the company of larger circle of friends but he feels fear and pressure while doing so. This is the red line between the social phobia and introversion. The social anxiety should not be taken lightly because the effects of social phobia are very detrimental. If a person is not willing to participate in the society or friends then it will definitely affect his professional life very badly. There are many people who are fired just because of bad communication skills. In the cooperate world of today, a person has to meet with multi-ethnic people having diverse backgrounds and interests. The skills of adjustments in the volatile environments is really very necessary to survive in the cooperate world otherwise the competitive environments will not let the victim of the social anxiety to last longer in the seat. The survival of the fittest approach requires efficient diagnosis of this phobia in order to get the person out of the inferiority complex. Similarly, if the person will not meet people around him then there will be societal problems and people will consider him rude and ill-mannered whereas the fact of the matter is that he is not abusive in behavior rather the person who is going through the problem of social anxiety want to deal with people in exigent and good way but he cannot do so because of the inferiority complexes and wrong perceptions. The person will feel lonely all the time because of the social anxiety problem. According to different studies it has been depicted that the people who are victim of social anxiety often fall victim of drugs and liquor. This is because of the phenomena of problem avoidance in the human beings. People who are socially anxious and cannot meet the problems of the day to day life finds an escape route in taking drugs. Symptoms There are numerous symptoms of the social anxiety problems which should be spread in order to increase the awareness about this detrimental problem . The first and the most important of all the symptoms of social anxiety is that the potential victim will feel fear about any social activity and meetings whenever he is prompted to do so. He will try to avoid every activity that has massive interactions among the people. The surrounding individuals should understand that this is the most potent symptom of the social anxiety. The social avoidance problems will be depicted in different moods of the victim for example he will say that I don’t want to go in the meeting because I am ill and He will make the similar excuses. He will also feel excessive fear abhorrence of being scrutinized by the people and that is the reason why his behavior will always remain apologetic and he will always remain on the back foot. The victim of the social anxiety cannot ever analyze things critically because He thinks that he is always wrong and others are always right. Different physical characteristics can also be used to acquire the information about the symptoms of the social anxiety of the victim. The body language of the person going through the social anxiety will always be imbalanced and abnormal. Signs of sweat drop on his forehead. Shaking hands, diarrhea, muscle tensions and blush are the main symptoms of the tensions taking place inside the individual who is victim of social anxiety (Emilien, 114). There are different time bound scenarios when the victim of the social anxiety will be exposed and the individuals around him can know that he is going through this serious problem and report him to the doctor. The person will always feel excessive tension and while doing any worked in front of others for example he will not feel comfortable while eating and drinking in front of others. Similarly, He will feel discomfort while writing in front of others or reading some piece of paper aloud in front of multiple individuals. Talking on the telephone, speech in public, asking questions, giving presentations and explaining anything to the users is never a very exigent task for the people going through social anxiety. The collective environments are always very much difficult for the people to handle for them. Treatment There are different treatments for the Social anxiety disorders that are proposed by the doctors by thoroughly studying the patient. There is an extravagant need of the diagnosis phase in the treatment phase because the right diagnosis will lead the patient to the right treatment otherwise things can get worse. The modern techniques are being proved to be very productive because the technology has to play a wider role in the diagnosis process. The patient is observed very thoroughly under different special facilities and then the treatment phase starts with some pre-defined protocols (Stein et al, 509). The most common and effective technique that is used in order to treat the patients of social anxiety is known as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). In this technique the transformational behaviors are nurtured and the patient is told to convert the negative things into positive things (Burns et al, 441). He is told that whenever a negative event takes place then it is not necessary that its results will be negative as well. The hidden qualities of the person are nurtured and exploited in this treatment technique and he is told to communicate without any fear. He is made sure that there is nothing judgmental about him. This treatment requires special facility where the patient is away from the general society so that he can communicate with the doctors freely without any feelings of embarrassment. Without the rush of people the person will be able to feel free to communicate with all the supervisors. This also needs special interactive session between the patient and the doctor in which the doctors understand the habits and norms of the patient. Without being equipped with necessary knowledge about the patient, the doctors can never suggest a better way to treat the patient. The CBT treatment shows practical way to the patient in which he learns to turn the tables around and transform the negative things into positive one for example if he commits a mistake in the public then he can change the overall impression by making joke about it any making laugh (Bannink, 197). Cracking jokes at odd situations can inculcate self confidence in the person and prevent the negative impression to surface about the personality. Similarly, if he has spoken some wrong word in the public then a mere sorry will suffice. The patient should understand and perceive the audience as the laymen and the he should know the fact that committing a mistake is normal and every person do that (Heimberg et al, 304). The doctors should pay excessive heed and care in using benzodiazepine medications because this can become addition to the patient. Similarly, an excessive care should be taken out of the patient while the treatment process goes on and this should me make sure he is not using any of the alcohol or addictive materials. The use of addictive powders is very much common among the patients of the social anxiety and this is the reason why doctors should carry out an ethical course on the use of alcohol and tell the patients that the use of such material will never give any benefit to them rather it will worsen the situation and cause more problems. Another most important factor in the treatment phase is to inquire about the co-occurring disorders of Social Anxiety and substance use If this is the case with any patient then massive care is needed in the treatment in order to ensure that there is no side effect of the medicines that are being used The substance use will be depleted first and then the attention should be given to the pivotal problem of social anxiety. ReferencesTop of Form Bannink, Fredrike. Practicing Positive Cbt: From Reducing Distress to Building Success. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Internet resource. Burns, David D., and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. "Therapeutic empathy and recovery from depression in cognitive-behavioral therapy: a structural equation model." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 60.3 (1992): 441. Crozier, W R, and Lynn E. Alden. The Essential Handbook of Social Anxiety for Clinicians.Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Internet resource. Top of Form Emilien, Ge?rard. Anxiety Disorders: Pathophysiology and Pharmacological Treatment. Boston: BirkhauserVerlag, 2002. Print. Heimberg, Richard G, and Robert E. Becker. Cognitive-behavioral Group Therapy for Social Phobia: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Strategies. New York [u.a.: Guilford Press, 2002. Print.Bottom of Form Top of Form Stein, Dan J, Eric Hollander, and Barbara O. Rothbaum. Textbook of Anxiety Disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Pub, 2010. Print. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More