Social Anxiety Disorder

Much has been written in last few years on Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). But what does it really mean to be socially anxious? As many people well know, it means facing a variety of anxiety symptoms (including panic attacks) when presented with situations that involve social interaction or exposure. Sometimes, just anticipating such situations is enough to trigger the anxious response. The person usually recognizes that the fear is excessive or irrational, but that alone does not diminish it in any way.

Social anxiety can be generalized, spanning all social situations, or it can be specific, limited to particular situations such as public speaking or eating in public. This latter type is more common than the former, but, depending on the situations involved, its interference in everyday life can range from almost inconsequential to quite disturbing. If a person has a specific phobia of public speaking, but never has to enter such situations in everyday life, the SAD diagnosis needs not be made, as it ends up not having negative effects on actual performance.

The cause behind the anxiety is usually automatic (and often unconscious) thoughts about the possibility of performing poorly at some task, or being negatively judged by others. This evaluation component is quite frequent in social anxiety sufferers: there is susceptibility when it comes to situations where they feel judged (also including situations like academic test-taking).