Social phobia: characteristics
Social phobia: characteristics
What are the symptoms of social phobia? What are the negative consequences in everyday life? What can online therapy do?
Social phobia, also called social anxiety, falls precisely among anxiety disorders. Its main characteristic is intense fear and a sense of being blocked in relation to the public or interpersonal relationships: fear of acting in front of others, of making a bad impression, of experiencing humiliating or embarrassing situations, fear of receiving negative comments, difficulty interacting while being blocked by the thought of “being under scrutiny.’’
Social phobia also appears to be one of the most widespread anxiety disorders among the population, reaching peaks of up to 13%; it would also seem that the individuals most affected by this phobia are women.
Over time, this form of disorder leads the individual to close in more and more, limiting social occasions or cutting them out completely, in order to avoid the stress they may experience in such situations and the enormous fear of being poorly regarded, judged, and feeling inadequate.
Identikit of social phobia
Social anxiety can thus become extremely limiting in daily life, since beyond social relationships, many individuals are unable to face the fear of performing actions that could also prove to be of great importance, such as: “making certain phone calls, eating in public, speaking in public (therefore anything that involves acting in front of other people, especially strangers), going to an event, an appointment or an interview, taking a seat in an already full room, or attending classes or in-person activities.”
In addition, before facing a conversation or relational circumstances, one might experience fear of not being able to give an answer, of remaining silent, or of not “having a ready comeback’’ (always linked to the fear of making a bad impression); accompanied by a series of symptoms such as:
- heart palpitations,
- sweating,
- trembling voice or stuttering.
Social anxiety can also be divided into three categories
- simple anxiety: in which the person experiences social anxiety in a few specific situations (for example, there is no fear of attending a party, but there is fear of public speaking);
- generalized anxiety: when there are many and varied situations in which one fears socializing or putting oneself on the line socially;
- anticipatory anxiety: the latter can accompany the first two, when one begins to ruminate or have feelings of intense anxiety or fears even before a given event occurs (for example, anxiety about having to make a phone call, meeting someone, and so on). Thus further fueling the phobia regardless of whether that much-feared event will occur or not; inevitably damaging quality of life, one’s thoughts, and one’s self-esteem.
Negative consequences
All this could also seriously throw into crisis those who experience social phobia, not only because of a whole series of avoidances that, over time, lock them in and increasingly feed the fear, but also with regard to the tendency toward self-blame: “I’m not capable,’’ “I’m useless,’’ “I can’t do things everyone does,’’ “I can no longer do things I used to do.’’
The risk here is that negative and disabling thoughts, combined with continual avoidances or renunciations regarding social life, can make social phobia stable and chronic, and fuel it with even more disabling depressive states.
At what stage can social anxiety disorder appear Such a disorder can appear both in youth and early adulthood; when the individual perceives changes in their life, new challenges they do not feel up to. One is growing up and the feeling of inadequacy, of confronting the world, peers, taking one’s place and carving out space in the world, having to appear brilliant, accepting oneself for who one is in an era in which standards are unattainable and raised excessively to conform to society (social media, mass media, others’ expectations) could at times be so strong as to lead precisely to various kinds of anxiety disorders, specifically, social phobias.
What can online therapy do?
Online therapy is the most effective means of truly working on oneself when suffering from social anxiety, and of eradicating the problem at its root rather than calming it only on the surface. Through online therapy it is in fact possible to determine, by doing a backward and exploratory work, in what circumstances and at what stage of one’s life the symptom arose, understanding what is really blocking the person and why, doing broader work of personal evolution and growth, learning to define one’s disabling mental patterns, one’s sabotaging beliefs, and to free oneself from them by adopting a better view of oneself.
Online therapy also helps those suffering from social anxiety to understand themselves, to become aware of the unconscious mental processes that the person, precisely through social phobia, is masking: a sense of inadequacy, insecurities, low self-esteem.
In this way social anxiety becomes the symptom of something larger. It is the fog that prevents one from descending through one’s deeper psychic layers, and feeding it would only strengthen the status quo. Through online therapy, on the other hand, it is possible to access this deeper part of ourselves, to listen to ourselves and look within and in depth, welcoming all aspects of ourselves, thus giving voice to this discomfort manifested as social phobia, seizing even the deeper evolutionary signals and advantages that this symptom has come to communicate to us.
For information write to Dr. Jessica Zecchini.
Email contact consulenza@jessicazecchini.it, whatsapp contact 370 32 17 351
