What is social anxiety? A definition for discussion.
What is social anxiety? Social anxiety is the FEAR of social situations, social interactions and meeting people. It can touch all aspects of a person's life.
Social anxiety is accompanied by high levels of anxiety and associated symptoms, such as sweating, blushing, shaking, pounding heart, diarrhoea, dread, insomnia and negative thoughts.
The anxiety may be almost constant. This is because the social anxiety symptoms typically occur when people are having to negotiate social situations and when thinking about them both before and afterwards.
Being the centre of attention, being looked at or feeling as though they are being singled out can be gruelling for someone with social anxiety. They may be concerned about making a fool of themselves, blushing or having their anxiety discovered.
Not knowing what to do or say in social interactions can lead to anxiety. Rachel has a DVD that can be used at home, to learn many of the essential conversation skills. Click here for full details.
What happens when you have social anxiety?
Social anxiety can, amongst other things, lead to social isolation, loneliness, a loss of friends, avoidance of social situations, rejection of social invitations, over reliance on alcohol or other drugs, limited career options, and a severe awkwardness when meeting people.
In its severe form social anxiety can require treatment by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist experienced in treating anxiety disorders.
Written by Rachel Green. Speaker | Communication Specialist | Coach
Rachel is not a clinical psychologist nor psychiatrist but has a degree in psychology, experience in teaching mindfulness meditation for anxiety reduction and a family member with social anxiety disorder.
She is the author of "Business networking: The skills you need", the definitive collection of conversation tips and topics to make any social interaction or networking function easy. Click here to obtain your copy.
Copyright Confident Woman Australia, 2010.
NB: Any information contained in this article is not provided as an alternative to the obtaining of psychological advice from an appropriately qualified practitioner. If you, or people known to you, may have social anxiety disorder please seek professional help and do not rely on this for the diagnosis of any psychological problems.
Rachel Green
Reader Comments (2)
Clare
Yes there are other people with social anxiety, in fact, as I understand it social anxiety is one of the commonest of the anxiety disorders. I suggest you seek out the help of a really good psychiatrist or psychologist who is specialising in social anxiety disorders.
There are a number of articles on social anxiety on this site that you may want to read, as sometimes people get confused between shyness and social anxiety, low self-esteem and social anxiety, and so on.
A fear of being judged negatively when you want to leave a positive impression but fear that you won't, seems to be one of the core features of social anxiety, along with quite severe anxiety symptoms, etc.
Hope this helps - but do seek help.
Rachel.