It occured to me a while back that there is something very odd about the obsessive qualities of cognitive bias in people with Social Phobia. People seem to have momentous difficulty in releasing their distorted thinking patterns and require massive amounts of evidence to dispprove them. I suspected that there may be a neurological factor to Cognitive Distortions that could explain this obsessive behavior. It seems I am probably correct. Here is my evidence:
1. Cognitive Distortions are a prerequisite in GSAD, but are also very common in OCD, although not required.
2. Most people with GSAD do not have OCD (15%). Most people with OCD are not comorbid with another anxiety disorder.
3. CBT is effective in treating GSAD (87%), but not in OCD (30%).
4. Medications alone are effective in treating OCD only half of the time (40%). Medications alone don't resolve GSAD usualy.
5. Medications are usualy effective in minor obsessive thinking disorders.
6. Neuroplastic treatment is highly effective in OCD without the use of medications.
7. People with GSAD and OCD generaly if not almost always, have underlying brain dysfunction in the Cingulate and Amygdala. This is not only related to overactivity but also to "microstructural anomalies" in the amygdala in people with GSAD. There are similar structural problems with people who have OCD.
From this evidence I draw several key conclusions:
1. The same or a related neurological condition probably underlies OCD, OCD spectrum, GSAD, and GAD. This condition is both structural and neuro-chemical, and causes obsessive and anxious tendencies.
2. Cognitive Distortions (which are common in children) are reinforced substantialy by obsessive-anxious neurological dysfunction, resulting in a high comorbidity in OCD cases.
3. This type of neurological dysfunction predisposes a person to developing Social Anxiety Disorder. This works by (1) predisposing them to developing anxious beliefs through biases, and (2) predisposing them to obsessing over anxious beliefs once they occur. This implies that personality is primarily unrelated to GSAD and would explain the wide range in attitudinal style and personality in people with GSAD (those factors which are not attributable to neurological dysfunction).
1. Cognitive Distortions are a prerequisite in GSAD, but are also very common in OCD, although not required.
2. Most people with GSAD do not have OCD (15%). Most people with OCD are not comorbid with another anxiety disorder.
3. CBT is effective in treating GSAD (87%), but not in OCD (30%).
4. Medications alone are effective in treating OCD only half of the time (40%). Medications alone don't resolve GSAD usualy.
5. Medications are usualy effective in minor obsessive thinking disorders.
6. Neuroplastic treatment is highly effective in OCD without the use of medications.
7. People with GSAD and OCD generaly if not almost always, have underlying brain dysfunction in the Cingulate and Amygdala. This is not only related to overactivity but also to "microstructural anomalies" in the amygdala in people with GSAD. There are similar structural problems with people who have OCD.
From this evidence I draw several key conclusions:
1. The same or a related neurological condition probably underlies OCD, OCD spectrum, GSAD, and GAD. This condition is both structural and neuro-chemical, and causes obsessive and anxious tendencies.
2. Cognitive Distortions (which are common in children) are reinforced substantialy by obsessive-anxious neurological dysfunction, resulting in a high comorbidity in OCD cases.
3. This type of neurological dysfunction predisposes a person to developing Social Anxiety Disorder. This works by (1) predisposing them to developing anxious beliefs through biases, and (2) predisposing them to obsessing over anxious beliefs once they occur. This implies that personality is primarily unrelated to GSAD and would explain the wide range in attitudinal style and personality in people with GSAD (those factors which are not attributable to neurological dysfunction).
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People use the environment as an excuse. Well here's my question to you environmental determinists, if your experiences are realy at fault, how do you explain that many more people have had similar or worse life circumstances and yet they developed no such disorder? Perhaps you are just "weaker" than they are? Hmm? See that argument doesn't survive scrutiny. It's not the environment that causes the problem, its the confluence between a neurological disorder and traumatic environmental circumstances.