Social Anxiety and Presidency - Essay Example

Social Anxiety and Presidency
Mental illnesses are becoming so widespread nowadays that often people don’t even know that they might have one. For instance, such mental illness as social anxiety is quite common in the society, although people manage to live with it and function in their working realms through difficult struggling with their social fears. Thus even a President of the United States who had the disorder would still be able to manage his or hers responsibilities.
Social anxiety disorder is a kind of enormous phobia of social activity and interpersonal communication, characterized by constant fear of interaction with other people. The phobia is based on human fear to be estimated negatively by other people, so those who suffer from social anxiety usually think of themselves as of not good enough to be accepted by society (Grison et. al., 2015, p. 465). Thus they usually wish to avoid any possible social situations. The manifestations of social anxiety are multiple. First, there are certain physical symptoms of the disorder like sweating and intensive heart beating; another symptom is engaged with wrong cognitive perception of other people such as constant bothering of what others are currently thinking about one or worrying that everyone’s looking and judging the person (Grison et. al., 2015). Moreover, people who suffer from the disorder usually avoid any social activity, so the symptom of avoidance may even occur when people are afraid of talking to somebody on the phone.
The treatment methods for the disorder can be two kinds: psychotherapy, where cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis may be applied, and medications that may smooth the symptoms of the disorder for it sufferers to improve their communication. Thus the most popular kind of medication prescribed for the disorder is antidepressants; however, psychologists mostly suggest taking medications along with attending regular psychotherapy sessions in order to conduct the complex treatment that would work on both levels: physical and mental.
The reasons why a President of the United States could have managed his responsibilities having the mental illness are multiple. First of all, even though his job requires multiple social interactions, still there are certain kinds of sedative medications that would help such president to overcome the difficulties. The more important thing concerning this job is mostly engaged with president’s analytical skills, good economic, legal, and political science knowledge. Although a president indeed should frequently meet a lot of people and his social anxiety could be destroying for his entire career, still if people knew that their president suffers from the disorder, they would understand his situation, given that the president would do his job brilliantly. For instance, if his reforms changed the entire state system for the best, this would be more valuable for American people than his ability or disability to communicate.
Hence, even though being a President of the United States requires constant connections with people, a president with social anxiety would still be possible to conduct his job if he would focus on real reformation within his country; moreover, his social connection responsibilities could have been partially covered by the First Lady and his Vice-President.

References
Sarah Grison, Todd Heatherton, and Michael Gazzaniga W. W. Psychology in Your Life. Norton & Company, Inc, 2015. Read More