Social Anxiety Research Paper

Social Anxiety: Shyness or Something More? Social Anxiety Disorder is the extreme fear or phobia of being judged in a social or performance situation. It is routinely viewed as someone just being overly shy or as a way for doctors to push the sales of unnecessary pharmaceuticals, but it is actually a legitimate psychological condition that affects roughly as many as 19.2 million Americans (WebMD). Almost everyone can relate to being anxious and self conscious in certain situations. Whether it’s giving a public speech, going on an interview, or meeting people for the first time, anxiety is a normal human response to stress and new situations. What sets people with Social Anxiety Disorder apart from normal anxiety is that the fear and anxiety …show more content…
Ironically, it is also believed to be the most common. It’s causes and symptoms are not empirically known and can vary significantly from individual to individual. Current theories include suffers developing this disorder due to having a genetic disposition towards panic disorders or they could be suffering from another psychiatric condition that facilitates Social Anxiety Disorder such as depression. It could also be a learned response, either passed down from their parents, or acquired from some social trauma such as being embarrassed or humiliated in front a large group of peers at a young age. In some instances, it also may be induced by the use of mind altering substances such as alcohol, cannabis, and opiates (WebMD). And, though the exact mechanism of this disorder, how it affects the brain, is still unknown, continued study has found some correlation with with imbalances in neurochemicals and hyperactivity in certain areas of the brain that control the bodies response to anxiety …show more content…
Clonazepam or other benzodiazepine based pharmaceuticals like Xanax are commonly prescribed due to the idea that their muscle relaxant/sedative properties is thought to address the mental anxiety and physical manifestations of it. The problem is that these drug not only cause dependence with severe and possibly deadly withdrawal symptoms, they have also been shown to actually raise the levels of anxiety felt by its users after prolonged exposure (Wikipedia). Research shows that the most effective treatment, that gives suffers the greatest chance of conquering the disorder and living a normal life is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This is a combination of Cognitive and Behavioral techniques aimed at correcting the maladaptive thought processes that cause constant fear of judgement. The goal is to replace harmful patterns in thinking such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and catastrophizing with more realistic and effective thoughts, in an attempt to decrease emotional distress and self-defeating behavior (Wikipedia). In simpler terms, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is rebuilding the way a person thinks and how they respond to stress and other anxiety triggers. The goal is to slowly retrain the brain to think in a positive way

Show More

Related Documents: Social Anxiety Research Paper