Social Phobia

According to Abnormal psychology (14th ed.) the definition of Social Phobia is “the fear of situations in which a person might be exposed to the scrutiny of others and fear of acting in a humiliating or embarrassing way”. Social Phobia is one of the most common individual DSM-IV Disorders (Butcher). Although social phobia does not usually manifest itself until the teenage years or early adulthood, it can be brought on by many different factors in early childhood, like being bullied or based on genetic or learned behaviors from parents. They are also some different variation of social phobia; there is generalized social phobia, social phobia with agoraphobia, social phobia with or without panic attacks and also Japanese disorders similar to it called Taijin kyofusho. All these variations of social phobia come with different effects on people and caused by different factors. Social Phobia causes people to worry that other people are looking at you and noticing what you are doing, dislike being introduced to other people, find it hard to go into shops or restaurants, worry about eating or drinking in public, feel embarrassed about undressing in public, so you can't face going to the beach, can't be assertive with other people, even when you know you need to. Although these traits can simply just characterizes shyness in people. There are different degrees and other factors that make it more than shyness, social phobia can occur in different degrees and when combined with other disorders like depression, it can be a very serious disorder. About 5 percent of the population suffers from some degree of social phobia. Social Phobia is developed early on in life due to negative past experience with people or the environmental reasons. Family history also is a major factor for example if parents were also social phobic or has other personality disorders. If Social isn’t treated properly it can lead to more serious problems like self-medication and drug addictions