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Literature review of treatment of social anxiety
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Cognitive-Behavioural Group Therapy for social anxiety in young individuals
Social anxiety is a type of anxiety problem common in children. It is usually described as an overwhelming fear stem from intense feelings of self-consciousness and shyness. Thus, young individuals affected by it may feel extremely discomfort when participating in daily social situations, especially when they were required to perform in unfamiliar social situations. With social anxiety, an individual's life is constantly interfered by fears of embarrassment (Rapee, 1995). Affected individuals might be unable to enjoy social activities and even avoid some of them. Life interference and impairment associated with social anxiety could therefore be severe. Attention for social anxiety significantly increased in early 1990s and cognitive models began to be proposed to explain the maintenance of social anxiety. This has facilitated further investigation into the nature of the maladaptive behavioural pattern as well as corresponding treatments.
The two well-known cognitive behavioural models of social anxiety suggest one’s attention to threat stimuli has an important role in maintaining the social fear (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Both models suggest that there are a number of beliefs and assumptions of the self and the social world activated when individuals with social anxiety associate themselves with social situations. Necessity to display an excessively high standards for social performance is assumed, otherwise must lead to aversive social consequence.
The two models suggest these underlying social assumptions trigger an attentional shift. Not only those individuals set high standards for themselves, they also sensitive to environmental ...
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...designed to reduce these deficiencies. These techniques include therapist modelling, behavioural rehearsal, corrective feedback, social reinforcement, and homework assignments.
One unique component of the CBGT is a scheduled snack break designed to provide exposure to eating in public and opportunities for practicing social skills. Social skills training may also yield therapeutic effects by giving opportunities to the individuals to practice feared social behaviours repeatedly, and confrontation of feared situations and corrective feedback about the adequacy of one’s social behaviour inherent in the instruction of such skills training.
Regardless, social skills training may be easily combined with other techniques, such as cognitive restructuring or exposure.
Empirical evidence
The efficacy of CBGT has been demonstrated in a number of well-designed studies.
One of the most common anxiety disorder is social phobia, which can sometimes be interchangeable with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Marc de Rosnay, and others, states that Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by a clearly noticeable fear and avoidance of most social situations where the individual may be put under scrutiny by others, and by fear in such situations, the individual will behave in an embarrassing manner (de Rosnay). One of the most notable feature of social phobia is that it has an early onset, as early as 7-9 months in most cases. The characteristics of having social phobia, or social anxiety disorder, is that the individuals are shy when meeting new people, quiet in a large group, blush easily, and often avoids making eye contact. There are a lot of concerns/problems with having social anxiety disorder. As a group, individuals with anxiety disorders had the largest burden of role disability compared to other common mental health conditions, exceeding the burden for mood disorders and in some cases, substance abuse (Grigorenko).
In general, Social Anxiety Disorder, or Social Phobia, is defined as an anxiety disorder characterized by an overwhelming amount of anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations (“Social Phobia,” 2014). These individuals have trouble with basic communication and interaction, often to the point where they can physically feel the effects of their anxiety. Profuse sweating, stomach ache, and nausea are not uncommon occurrences when a person with Social Anxiety Disorder is placed in an uncomfortable situation. There are several hypothesized causes of Social Anxiety Disorder; however, one of the most
Having anxiety is common and a part of everyday life however; there is a huge difference between a fear and a social phobia or anxiety disorder. The difference and important distinction psychoanalysts make between a fear and a phobia is “a true phobia must be inconsistent with the conscious learning experience of the individual” (Karon 1). Patients with true phobias “do not respond to cognitive therapy but do respond well to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy” (Karon 2). Social phobia is a serious anxiety disorder that should not be taken lightly or mistaken as a fear you will simply grow out of the older you get. Social phobia has the power to destroy lives and can prevent people from living and enjoying their life to the fullest. Social phobia is a disabling condition that often starts between the ages of early childhood and late adolescence. The origins of social phobia can be linked to “traumatic social experiences and social isolation” (Hudson118-120). Social phobia is treatable however; research and statics show that not many seek help.
Social anxiety is a prevalent and common disorder amongst society. Social anxiety disorder is expressed as a fear in public and social situations for an individual (Kashdan, Farmer, Adams, Mcknight, Ferssizidis, Nezelf 2013). A person with social anxiety fears that a social appearance, outcome, or situation will lead a to negative response to their surrounding audience (Kashdan, Farmer, Adams, Mcknight, Ferssizidis, Nezelf 2013). However there are numerous treatments for social anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most efficacious treatments that a patient may receive (Hambrick, Weeks, Harb, & Heimberg, 2003. Cognitive behavioral therapy has numerous techniques that can be used on patients. The result of using cognitive behavioral therapy on patients shows that it has long-term and short-term effectiveness (Hambrick, Weeks, Harb, & Heimberg, 2003. In conclusion a patient with social anxiety disorder should have the opportunity to try cognitive behavioral therapy.
SAD is the third most prevalent mental disorder behind depression and alcoholism. About 5.3 million American adults have social phobia, which usually begins in childhood or adolescence, according to NIMH. For many social phobics, preoccupation with what others think may interfere in their job, school, relationships or other social activities. "Everyday interactions can become very problematic for people with social anxiety disorder," (Dittmann, 2005). Recent update of Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) stated that about 15 million American adults have social anxiety disorder. 36 percent of people with social anxiety disorder report symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help. Furthermore, reported typical age of onset is 13 years old (ADAA, 2014) suggests that children and adolesce...
Social phobias are fears of being in situations where your activities can be watched and judged by others. People with social phobias try to avoid social functions at all costs and find excuses not to go to parties or out on dates. This avoidance is the difference between having a social phobia and simply just being shy.
Social anxiety goes from not being able to socialize with people in a class to never leaving home due to the anxiety that is causes. Markway’s article states that there are three categories involved with social anxiety; mental distress, physical distress, and how avoidance affects someone socially. Mentally, it is exhausting to talk to people for to people and have that constant anxiety about the way they talk and act. People with social anxiety often think about how they can humiliate and embarrass themselves in front of others. This drives someone to fear that they may do something wrong at any given moments and may be rejected altogether (“Markway”, 2013).
It has been claimed that attentional bias causes anxiety. Attentional bias is when attention is automatically captured by certain stimuli. In terms of anxiety, this can be for example, the fear of spiders. Individuals who suffer from the phobia could, for example be reading a newspaper and related stimuli such as the word ‘web’ would capture their attention. Attentional bias has been found among many anxiety disorders including social phobia, OCD, trait anxiety, social phobia and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). I will review evidence for the presence of attentional bias among anxiety disorders and try to determine whether attentional bias causes anxiety. I will review evidence from Macleod and Mathews (2002), Koster, Crombez, Verschuere, Damme and Wiersema (2006), and Bradley and Mogg (1999).
Social anxiety disorder is also known as social phobia. It is defined as the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. It is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or ridicule. This leads to feelings of inadequacy, self-consciousness, and depression. The person with social anxiety disorder may believe that all eyes are on him at all times. Social anxiety disorder is the third largest mental health case issue in the world, and it can effect 7% of the population (15 million Americans) at any given time.
At times it may be possible to modify the environment of the student by implementing preventive strategies. Some examples of these are teachers stating clear expectations, modifying seating arrangements, adapting the pace of instruction, avoiding exposing the student to long delays, providing a choice of activities, and allowing the student to take breaks. There are three types of alternative skill instruction. Replacement skills or behaviors must serve the exact same function as the problem behavior. More general skills alter the problem situations and help prevent the need for the problem behavior. These skills may include academic instruction if academic deficits are the main reason the student has behavioral issues. Coping and tolerance skills such as anger management are things the student learns to do when he or she is faced with difficult situations. Replacement Behaviors must serve the same function and have meaning for the student. It is important that the behavior be something the student is capable of doing and be socially acceptable in the context. The behavior must be immediately effective and tolerable to the
Main Point 1: There are three main categories of phobias. The first category is Specific Phobias which are known as simple phobias. Specific phobias or simple phobias are usually fears about specific situations, living creatures, places, activities, or things. Examples of simple phobias is dentophobia (dentists), aerophobia (flying), claustrophobia (small spaces), and acrophobia (heights). The other two categories are Social Phobia and Agoraphobia. These two are known as complex phobias. The article “What is a Phobia?”, describes them as complex phobias because “they are linked to deep-rooted fear or anxiety about certain situations, incidents or circumstances, which make them more disabling than simple phobias.” Social phobia is also referred to as social anxiety disorder. Social phobia may be defined in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. (Webmd.com) A person with social phobia finds being in social situations very difficult to handle with because of the lack of social skills or experiences that person may have. Going out to social events such as parties or functions may cause anxiety to a person with social phobia. There is that fear a person has of being embarrassed in public. People with this phobia may be afraid of a specific situation such as public speaking. Medicinenet.com defines “agoraphobia” as “a fear of being outside or otherwise being in a situation from which one either cannot escape or from which escaping would be difficult or humiliating.” The results of agoraphobia are anxiety and panic attacks. People with agoraphobia sometimes confine themselves inside their own home when symptoms are
One may be asking, what exactly is social anxiety? Social anxiety is the fear that everyone around is constantly judging one and that one is being critiqued or looked down upon. There are many misconceptions of what social anxiety actually is. Social anxiety is not being excessively shy. For example, a shy person could have a social anxiety disorder but they could not have one just as easily. Just as well, an outgoing person could have an anxiety disorder just as well as they could not have one. Social anxiety affects ones life in ways that are not pleasant and can sometimes be plaguing to the mind. Over 40 million people have been diagnosed with social anxiety, and many more are victims to it, but haven’t been diagnosed The...
Social skills play a very crucial part in the existence of every individual. This is for the simple reason that the level unto which the social skills a person(s) has, generally describes the level of co-existence that prevail in that given environment (Sussman, 2012). The way a person describes scenarios, solves problems, analyzes situations as well as the overall communication, all form the basis of social skills. According to Jean Piaget’s theory of social (cognitive) development, it is expected that individuals should be mentally or physically prepared to face the realities of the world. It is also important to keep in mind that these skills would be effective when they are learned in early stages of life. Therefore, social skills should grow and develop when one is in the early years of life.
3. The first key point is what people with Social anxiety behaviors are like. Social anxiety Disorder (also known as social phobia) is a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fears that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities of life. Some Individuals with this disorder are so fearful of being judged or embarrassed in front of others; they are unable to live a healthy social life. In extreme cases, some individuals can’t keep a job, maintain friendships, use public restrooms, walk down supermarket aisles or leave their house. In less extreme cases, many individuals seem to function normally as any other person. For example, they will attend social gatherings, complete school and progress into a very successful career. Nevertheless, their social anxiety disorder still impacts them, for example, they may not be able to speak or raise their hand during a lecture or in a work meeting
Anxiety has a main definition; a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease. Although, it has its single definition, each person diagnosed with anxiety has different symptoms. With that, some have more severe cases of the actual diagnosis. It has been noted that anxiety has had an increase in teens recently. In the last 30 years, the statistics for anxiety in fifteen to sixteen year olds have doubled for both girls and boys (“Increased Levels of Anxiety…” 1). It is said, “in societal moments like the one we are in…it often feels as if ours is the Age of Anxiety”(Henig 1). Anxiety affects teenagers profusely because the emotions of a teenager are more vulnerable than those of an adult. The brain of a teenager is not fully developed and the stress put on teenagers to start putting their life together takes a toll on their emotions. The daily life and activities are interfered with by anxiety when the amount of stress put on a teenager becomes unbearable. Unfortunately, the effects of anxiety become so intense that the mental health is eventually toyed with. So many different components of life contribute to anxiety and cannot be prevented.