Social Anxiety Disorder / Social Phobia

Definition:

An anxiety disorder in which a person has significant anxiety and discomfort related to a fear of being embarrassed, humiliated, or scorned by others in social or performance situations.

Description:

Social Phobia, otherwise known as Social Anxiety Disorder, is characterized by a fear of social or performance situations.

Typically people who suffer from social anxiety are completely aware of their physical responses, such as blushing, perspiration, trembling voice etc. This can lead to an increase in anxiety as a person will fear others may notice these responses and as much as they try to stop these responses, they feel they cannot which in turn may lead to immense frustration.

These are of course subconscious responses, and the person is in fact experiencing a fight or flight situation, as the subconscious believes this is a threatening environment. Even the thought of a feared activity may cause extreme anxiety and the actual experience of going through the event may cause a panic attack. Alternatively, a person may avoid the situation completely.

Social Anxiety is the third most common psychiatric disorder after depression and alcoholism. It tends to begin in childhood or adolescence. Around 40% of social phobias begin before you’re 10 years of age and 95% start before the age of 20. Social Phobia is the most common anxiety disorder and it’s thought that 1 in 10 people suffer it at some point in their lives. The most common associated fears are; speaking in public, speaking to strangers, fear of meeting new people, using public bathrooms and being the centre of attention.

Therapy:

During therapy, we will look to build your resources to enable you to handle those situations you currently feel uneasy in. Remember, those feelings of embarassment, blushing, sweating and feelings of nausea are all subconsicous responses to your 'threatening' environment. During therapy you will begin to re-evaluate these situations and believe you are more than capable of performing in front of others.

By reprogramming your subconscious mind to believe these situations are no longer a threat, and are in fact safe environments, you will begin to appreciate how much more comfortable you really can be the next time your subconscious mind perceives you are experiencing a performance situation (which can range from public speaking, writing or eating in public, or meeting new people).

Before any therapy starts, you will be booked in for an initial consultation to ensure we are both clear as to what you would like to acheive from therapy. Each 1 hour session will then progress on a weekly basis taking note of your progress.

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