WHAT IS ‘SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER’ (SAD)?

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is also called as Social PHOBIA. As the name suggests, it is a psychiatric disorder. A huge number of cases with SAD came into light during the 1980s and 1990s, and ever since then this has become the most common anxiety disorder.

A person with social anxiety disorder usually suffers from Intense and unreasonable amount of fear of single or multiple social situations around them. Anxiety, nervousness and self-consciousness is often observed to take shape from a persistent fear of embarrassment or being judged, criticized, watched or evaluated by others, causing significant amount of depression and impaired ability to function in daily life by shutting down from social interactions.

Though most of the patients suffering from such an anxiety can themselves very easily recognize it to be over-hyped, hypothetical and unreasonable, still they find it very difficult to grow out of it.

Some may suffer fear from a wide range of social situations while others may show similar traits in only performance related situations. Other situations that may trigger such tendencies include

• Being the centre of attention
• Meeting new people
• Working in a group
• Eating or drinking among people
• Using public restrooms
• Talking on a phone
• Being called on in the classroom
• Going on a date etc.

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People suffering SAD develop a distorted perception including false beliefs and negative attitude towards social situations. If untreated, SAD can lead to permanent damage to the person’s psychological and physiological functioning.

Studies show that social anxiety disorder is known to appear at as low as 11 years of age. About 80% of the cases have developed at the age of 20. It is linked to many other mental disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and panic disorder.

Causes of Social Anxiety Behaviour

With enormous amount of research happening, scientists still could not come to a single pointed conclusion on the causes for SAD. Though research suggests that genetically, psychological, cultural and environmental factors may contribute to the developments of SAD.

Biological Factors

SAD is more or less directly related to the availability of a neurotransmitter called Seratonin. Neurotransmitter is a kind of chemical messenger that carries information from one nerve cell to the other.  With an imbalance in the secretion of serotonin, nerve cells in the brain undergo fluctuations in information transmission and stimulation’s leading to a sort of impaired functioning of brain. This directly reflects on the way the person perceives and responds to the situations around him.

In addition SAD has been observed to run in families with a considerable amount of genetic influence. Research has found that SAD in any of the parents carries a risk of causing at least 30-40% of progeny to suffer from it.

Psychological Factors

SAD is also observed to have developed from certain negative and bitter experiences in the past such as being bullied or elbowed or ashamed and neglected by peers. It may also have developed due to ‘conditional’ or ‘unconditional’ negative beliefs branching from the psychological patterns.

Cultural Factors

Of late cultural influences have been observed to have an exponential impact on the ever increasing numbers of SAD cases. Given to the already existing disorder, cultures and customs impose pre-defined laws of social behaviour and expectations tend to further burden patients.

Environmental Factors

People with SAD develop their fears from analysis of other’s behaviour or by observing of what others have undergone with similar behaviour such as being laughed at or made fun of or criticised. Adding to this, children’s upbringing also plays a vital role in shaping his personality. Usually overprotected and over-cared children have greater chances of developing SAD tendencies.

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Symptoms of Social Anxiety Behaviour

The general behavioural pattern observed in SAD cases is that they tend to feel ‘something is wrong’ but fail to recognise it as an abnormal condition. It is very important to understand the difference between occasional nervousness and actual anxiety disorder or social phobia. Hence it is very important to understand the signs and symptoms of SAD. Symptoms can be briefly categorised into emotional, physical and behavioural.

Emotional symptoms

• Abnormal increase in self-consciousness and anxiety in social situations.
• Excessive worries for days, weeks or even for months at a stretch.
• Intense fear of being judged or watched by people around.
• worry or fear of presenting themselves in an embarrassing or unacceptable way.

Physical symptoms

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• Blushing- reddening of face.
• Improper bowel movement.
• Rapid heart beating and fullness in chest.
• Difficulty in breathing.
• Excessive sweating.
• Feeling dizzy or even fainting.

Behavioural Symptoms

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• Running away from social interactions to a point of constraining themselves at home.
• Hiding in the background and staying quiet in order to escape any social interactions.
• A need to always take someone to accompany them when going out.

What is the Cure?

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Social Anxiety Disorder is commonly treated by either psychotherapy or certain types of psychiatric medications. Though medications have promising impact on stabilising the situation, however psychotherapy plays a major role in curing SAD. The most common and effective type of psychotherapy is ‘Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’ (CBT). Let us learn about it.

What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

Cognitive behavioural therapy does not have a single set method but a combination of a mixture of techniques that depends on the symptoms and the person being treated. Research has shown that Cognitive therapy is one of the very few forms of therapy that is actually accountable for genuine improvement in SAD condition.

Cognitive behaviour therapy does not promise to cure the disorder, but help manage and deal with it with a positive outlook. The key concept behind Cognitive behavioural therapy techniques is it deals with the thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions as interconnected and that negative emotions and ideas can trap one in an unending cycle and tries to help patients transcend them.

Source : balancepsychology.com

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One of the main goals of Cognitive behavioural therapy is to discover the irrational ideas and thought patterns and replace them with a more realistic view of the situation. As a part of the therapy, patients are being worked on a number of issues in areas including

• Distorted perceptions about one’s own abilities and self-growth
• Ways to be more assertive
• Shame, Embarrassment or furious over past incidences
• Procrastination related to social anxieties.

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Do you need a CBT treatment?

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It is very important to identify the difference between occasional bouts of anxiety which is very common for many people, against repeated and frequent bouts of anxieties, fears and depression.

Remember that it is always ok to be anxious under stressful situations, and it doesn’t take much to correct them and you can overcome these tendencies very easily. But if you are one among those who is always in fear or doubtful about the situations around you, who has a continuous feeling of something going wrong all the time and finds it difficult to interact or attend social gatherings, if you frequently find yourself depressed and ashamed of anything, then I guess CBT is the way out!  

Conclusion–

Cognitive behaviour therapy is one of the best treatments available for social anxiety disorder. It is now a proven fact that cognitive therapy is the safest way of overcoming anxieties with a positive and fresh outlook. Most of the cases with SAD have been successfully managed with CBT way of treatment.  So what are you looking for, do not be sad since the treatment for your SAD is just a few CBT sessions away! All the best!

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