A phobic disorder, known as phobia, is a type of an anxiety disorder where the person experiences fear of a certain object, place or situation. The phobic disorders can either be developed after panic disorders or can trigger panic disorders in later life if untreated or when the disorders become severe. Phobias can be summarized in three categories; Social Phobia (The fear of exposure to the public and social situations), Agoraphobia (The fear of being trapped in specific locations or crowds), and Specific Phobia (The fear of a specific object or situation. Nevertheless, phobic disorders can be treated with exposure therapy (a type of behavior therapy), cognitive behavior therapy, and drugs (some may be for short-term, while others for long-term).

Social phobia is an intense fear of and anxiety about exposure to social situations and performance situations. People with social phobia are constantly afraid of their actions and speeches going wrong and being humiliated and embarrassed, which often results in avoidance of participating in social environments such as conversations, conferences, or parties. We are all social animals and being socially handicapped and having insecurities of relating in social situations can make us hindered in many activities and affect many crucial aspects of out lives and daily routines, increasing admiration of unfortunate loneliness. Compared to other normal anxieties in social situations, people with social phobia have much anxiety evolved that as stated previously they either avoid social situations or endure with distress and depressions.

According to John H. Greist, MD and James W. Jefferson, MD, about 13% of all people have this disorder sometime in their lives, and it affects 9% of women and 7% of men during an annual period, with men being more likely to have the more severe form of social anxiety, avoidant personality disorders rooting from this social phobic disorder.

People with social phobia are always concerned about their actions, and whether appropriated, and accepted or not. Social phobic person worries that his/her anxiety will be noticeable; sweating, blushing, trembling, vomiting and so on, and also worries about his/herself losing thoughts or forgetting words to express his/herself. Some people can start out with being shy by nature, and show shyness early in life which can later develops and leads to social phobic anxiety disorder. Social phobia can also be experienced around the time of puberty when one feels insecure about own body and characteristics, producing anxieties. Not all social phobias can be experienced for all given social environments, and some are produced only when certain activity is needed to be performed in public. There are situations that are commonly triggered among people of social phobia; public speaking, public performing, eating in a crowd, and all other public activities those involve receiving attentions. After all, the major cause of social phobia is fear of performances falling short of expectations, and becoming humiliated or embarrassed.

How can social phobia be treated and is it really necessary? Social phobia often continues if left untreated, forcing many people to avoid activities that in reality, they truly would like to do. Behavior therapy can be utilized as the treatment, and the well known therapy is the exposure therapy, where people of social phobia are repeatedly exposed to anxiety-provoking environments. However, the direct approach of “introducing” straight forward to what they fear, and having them get exposed long enough to decrease their anxieties and to get them used to the situation to grow comfortable, is not easy and most of the time alternative situations are necessary to be substituted with. For instance if the person has fear of making speeches in front of the school dean, it would be very much impossible to have the person get exposed initially to the dean, and the best way would be to practice at kindergartens and nursing homes, reading a book out loud to the audiences. When the person feels comfortable there, then the person should be exposed to actually make speeches in front of the dean. Therefore exposure therapy is effective to treat social phobias. Additionally, antidepressants, such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and anti-anxiety drugs can often be used as treatments (Greist & Jefferson, 2007).

By: Kaung | ChitChat247.com | KMKBlog.com