Social phobias include a whole group of phobias associated with public actions or communication. This could be a fear of speaking or other situations where a person is the center of attention, a fear of large crowds of people, fears associated with public evaluation, which include the fear of looking ridiculous or funny.
A person may be afraid of attention from other people, for example, experience severe discomfort in cases where they have to use a public toilet or eat in the company of other people. Social phobia can also manifest as excessive shyness when interacting with strangers or people of the opposite sex.
Social phobia is an anxiety disorder. If a person finds himself in a frightening situation, symptoms such as sweating, rapid heartbeat, flushing of the face, difficulty breathing, etc. may be observed.
When does social phobia develop?
Most often, a phobia begins to form in adolescence or adolescence, when the child faces various social difficulties. Teenagers are very dependent on public opinion. During this period, the fear of “being different from everyone else” intensifies, a craving for communication with the opposite sex appears, and with it the fear of being rejected. Public activities (reports, speeches, etc.) give rise to the fear of being worse than everyone else, of seeming funny, stupid or ridiculous. If the situation is unfavorable for the child, then fears are reinforced and transferred into adulthood.
Unfortunately, many people simply have not heard of such a disease as social phobia. They explain their conditions by excessive shyness and personal characteristics.
An Unidentified Disorder: Why Social Phobia Is Rarely Diagnosed
Scientists have calculated that, on average, social phobia lasts almost 23 years. Although it seriously affects all aspects of life, only about 20% of sufferers seek professional help, and usually only 15–20 years after the onset of symptoms. Less than 5% of people go to the doctor during the first year.
Often, such people consider social phobia to be a part of their personality that cannot be changed, or they look for the root cause of physiological symptoms.
Many children and teenagers are convinced that they will gradually outgrow this condition, but this is usually a misconception.
Social phobia is detected late and for other reasons:
- specialists do not always make the correct diagnosis;
- psychological help is stigmatized;
- the patient is afraid of being assessed by doctors;
- there is little information about effective treatment for social phobia;
- There are not enough therapeutic services.
Very often, social phobia is not diagnosed at all, and the person lives with this disorder all his life.
After the first manifestations of a phobia, a person (usually a child) subconsciously or consciously trains himself to avoid situations in which he becomes the center of attention and experiences severe anxiety. Due to this, the disorder is not so traumatic, but for the same reason it is less diagnosed. A person simply gets used to living with social phobia - to the detriment of self-realization.
Seeking help is also a social situation that the patient may avoid. Therefore, the disorder is often discovered when a person begins to treat a concomitant psychological condition that is more difficult not to recognize: addiction, panic attacks, depression.
If you think you may have social anxiety, take a test
to determine the level of social anxiety (Liebowitz scale).
Why is social phobia dangerous?
If social phobia is not treated, the patient’s condition may worsen over the years, leading to serious impairments in social adaptation, including loss of ability to work. Social phobia is often accompanied by depression and decreased self-esteem. People suffering from social phobias often seek solace in alcohol or drugs, and cases of eating disorders are common. Social phobia, especially in combination with other mental disorders, leads to complete isolation of a person and increases the risk of suicide attempts.
In 90% of cases, social phobia is cured using various psychotherapeutic methods.
If necessary, along with psychotherapy, medications are used. You shouldn’t self-medicate or give up - just make an appointment with a specialist .
A psychotherapist will help you cope with your problem and select effective treatment methods. You will definitely cope with your fears and gain self-confidence.
How to get rid of social phobia
Social phobia, the fear of attracting the attention of others, is not such a rare illness. It appears most often in adolescence, occurring equally often in boys and girls.
As a rule, this type of fear applies only to those situations that occur outside the family, well-known circle of a person. Often this can be combined with a low level of self-esteem (namely, in adolescence, as is known, it begins to undergo changes in comparison with the necessarily high/normal/in childhood).
How to get rid of social phobia yourself?
Some famous people describe former signs in themselves that are similar to the symptoms of this disorder. Among them are Jim Carrey, Robert Patisson, and Kim Basinger, for example, suffered from social anxiety, agoraphobia and panic attacks.
There are cases when, under the influence of certain factors, a person finds the strength and opportunity to overcome social phobia on his own. But this happens extremely rarely, since it is impossible to accurately predict which of the random factors in the life of a particular patient will contribute to this.
However, methods of professional assistance to patients suffering from social phobia have long been defined; they are successfully used in practice, contributing to the recovery of a large number of people.
For many years, specialists at Dr. Minutko’s clinic have successfully used various methods to help patients cope with this type of fear. If you are tormented by the question of how to get rid of social anxiety, then we will help you.
Using complex diagnostic methods, we establish the cause of such a disorder, as well as the presence or absence of concomitant diseases. Social phobia often manifests itself simultaneously with OCD and can be combined with anthropophobia (fear of people), agoraphobia and other disorders.
Anxiety and low self-esteem are also indispensable companions of social phobia. The work of our psychologists and psychotherapists is aimed at correcting them. Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy is recognized as the most effective treatment method worldwide. And since the disease is associated with behavior in society, group psychotherapy is more indicated. Training for social phobia helps to develop skills of self-expression, self-control and overcome avoidance of frightening situations. Having learned to act effectively in situations that are “fearful” for oneself in the comfortable, accepting conditions of a training group, the patient is able to subsequently transfer the experience gained into real life.
When treating social phobia, it is important to learn to control vegetative manifestations:
- increased breathing,
- excessive sweating,
- skin redness,
- shiver,
- urge to urinate more frequently
- And so on.
To do this, we use instrumental methods of treating phobic disorders. These include the biofeedback method. Biofeedback allows the patient, with the help of a specially organized feedback chain, to obtain information about certain physiological processes, and then learn to control them.
Thus, high-quality professional help allows you to both get rid of social phobia and significantly expand a person’s capabilities in the field of communication, building relationships, and career growth.
Do you need a consultation? How to get rid of social phobia? How to get rid of social phobia yourself? Call us now:
Manifestations of fear of communication
Recognizing the fear of communicating with people is quite easy. To do this, you just need to pay attention to your own behavior or the behavior of your relative or friend. It is difficult not to notice this, because social ill-being is striking. Let's take a closer look at ways of expressing fear.
Shyness
When an individual suffers from social phobia, this is necessarily expressed through shyness. A guy or girl can be so timid that it's really hard to imagine. They refuse not only to participate in public life, but to at least somehow express their position. For such people, defending an individual opinion is generally akin to a real feat. Shyness hinders self-realization and prevents the identification and development of strong character traits. It is worth noting that everyone has positive traits, but not everyone is ready to make certain efforts for their own development. If you have a habit of being shy, it means that it will be difficult for you to show your individuality in any matter.
Feeling isolated from the world
When we are afraid to communicate with the world, a feeling of isolation and isolation from the people around us arises. It seems to a person that he is alone in the whole world, and no one can help him solve the problem. This happens for the reason that a person unconsciously isolates himself. Having gotten used to refusing the help of others, he no longer hopes for them in the future. He makes it clear that he does not want to contact the world in any way due to his mistrust. Fear greatly limits him and makes him begin to doubt himself. The feeling of being cut off from the world is dangerous because it teaches a person to consider himself a victim in any situation. A person stops fighting and relies entirely on the fact that those around him will someday notice and understand him. Of course, this is a deliberately flawed approach that yields nothing but severe disappointment. The more a person withdraws into himself, the more difficult it becomes to find a decent way out of the situation.
Feeling exclusive
A person who is afraid of people gets used to considering himself an exceptional creature. He cultivates the behavior of a victim, and therefore does not want to change his rules and attitudes. It often seems to such people that everyone is unfairly offending them. They may complain to others about misunderstanding or pretend that they were wronged in vain. Such a person gets used to considering himself a misunderstood genius, a victim of the universe. It doesn’t occur to him to start analyzing his actions and actions. After all, it becomes much easier to blame others for your failures. The feeling of exclusivity is a derivative of arrogance and pride. It’s just that the fear of interacting with others is so strong that it does not allow them to take tentative steps towards the desired result. The individual does not make any attempts to feel better, to free himself from oppressive experiences.
Low self-esteem
A person who suffers from a fear of communication does not know how to value himself. He does not understand that he also has his own strengths, like everyone else around him. Rather, there is a fear of receiving social disapproval, of being misunderstood and condemned. Often such individuals do not pay any attention to their talents and do not develop their existing abilities. They feel that their own skills mean nothing and are worthless. Low self-esteem does not allow you to identify your best character traits and somehow express your talents. The personality is overly focused on its own shortcomings, it lacks the courage to start moving forward. Finding himself in such a situation, a person always finds weighty arguments to somehow justify his inaction: bad luck in life, no opportunities and talents. In fact, there are no aspirations and healthy ambitions. Such an individual does not know what he wants to achieve in life and does not know how to cope with even the most basic tasks. It soon turns out that there is absolutely no one to try for: there are no friends, close relatives do not always understand and do not share his experiences. Low self-esteem is always the result of an incorrect attitude towards life, the people around you and yourself.
Avoidance of social contacts
Fear of social interaction often forces an individual to avoid all contact. He begins to simply avoid people, fearing that they will cause him great mental pain and make him experience colossal disappointment. A person may not leave the house for weeks, closing himself off from everyone and everything within four walls. This line of behavior is due to the fear of disappointment. Avoiding social contacts does not lead to the formation of trust; rather, on the contrary, it scares people away. People around him begin to perceive such a person as abnormal, avoiding normal communication. The greater the mistrust, the greater the gap between the individual and the outside world becomes. The person becomes even more affirmed in his exclusivity and finally becomes locked in on the problem.
Fear of public speaking
It is impossible to get rid of the fear of communication if a person does not make any attempts to somehow work on himself. Personal development cannot be carried out without conscious desire. When there is a pronounced fear of communication, there is no opportunity to speak in public. The individual is seized with such panic that he has hardly ever experienced before. Under any pretext, he will refuse the opportunity to express himself and express his own feelings. Fear of public speaking greatly limits personal development. As a result, a person generally ceases to understand what he needs from life.
Symptoms
The main symptom of social phobia is the presence of stress experienced during public speaking and social interactions. At the same time, we must remember that public speaking can cause a little panic in healthy people, the main thing is that this panic does not seriously interfere with communications and does not occur in every case of communication. In addition, manifestations of social phobia are often confused with introversion, but these are completely different concepts: an introvert has a weak need for communication, while a social phobic may and would like to have more social contacts, but the constant fear of embarrassing himself or not being liked by other people does not allow him to relax, make new contacts.
