subject: What is Social Anxiety? [print this page] It is well known that down the centuries millions of people around the world face with social anxiety disorder or social phobia. The thing is that a person has an anxiety, even panic during group communication or public performance. This disorder can become obsessional neurosis and reduces quality of life.
Social phobia makes itself evident in some facts, for example: physiological as sweating, blushing, arm shake; cognitive/perceptual as belief that you may be judged negatively or looking for signs of disapproval; and behavioral components as avoiding a situation or fear long before mission needs related to public actions. However, social anxiety shouldn't be mixed up with quite common shyness or lacking in social confidence, these things are rather common for all people in a varying degree and in one form or another.
Social anxiety first occurs in infancy and is suggested to be a normal even useful emotion for effective social functioning and developmental growth. It implicates selfconsciousness and helps to draw conclusions about social intercourse and personal intercourse problems.
The wide-spread forms of social anxiety are usually the following: shyness, timidness, shamefacedness, stage fright (it is also called "butterflies in the stomach"), public activity anxiety, public speaking anxiety, etc. Keep in mind, all of them may turn to clinical forms, in other words, they may become social anxiety disorders. It is important to realize that clinical forms of social anxiety are necessary to be cured by the specialist.
People are different and it is arguable that some forms of social anxiety are normal for some people and deranged for others. It seems to be quite natural to feel shy while public speaking for a person who is not used to work with people at all. We shouldn't wait for a sovereign speech from the bookkeper, but if a public person starts to experience public speaking anxiety it may be a sign of serious personality disorder. However some psychologists draw a line among various types of social anxiety on the principle of habitualness of public actions.
Social anxieties are sometimes classified in line with the main triggering social situations; in fact a person may avoid doing many things in various circumstances but not to be shy in other situations. For example fear of loud public speaking may be appeared by no means in private situation.
