whats the difference between sa and shyness?
- Thread starter skeletor
- Start date
racheH
Well-known member
I agree with yetisbabe's link, at least for the purposes of this thread.
Shyness always describes a group of behaviours, but not the underlying cause. Being shy doesn't necessarily mean you have any kind of phobia, which is an irrational fear of some kind of situation. Shy behaviour occurs whenever we don't want to give something about ourselves away for whatever reason - be it a certain feeling, attribute or even our whole personality. Social phobia describes what happens when we may exhibit this behaviour specifically due to irrational distress at the idea of disapproval.
Shyness always describes a group of behaviours, but not the underlying cause. Being shy doesn't necessarily mean you have any kind of phobia, which is an irrational fear of some kind of situation. Shy behaviour occurs whenever we don't want to give something about ourselves away for whatever reason - be it a certain feeling, attribute or even our whole personality. Social phobia describes what happens when we may exhibit this behaviour specifically due to irrational distress at the idea of disapproval.
racheH
Well-known member
That's how some experts tell people whether they have other phobias or not too - so if you're a little scared of say... apples, it's not a phobia because it's not severe enough to impact your life much. However, the dictionary definition has always been irrational discomfort around, leading to fear of contact with (anticipation anxiety), a particular thing, which other experts still stand by and in my opinion is far more helpful. Obviously a fear of something harmless like apples needs different treatment to a fear of learning to swim in case of drowning - to fear apples is irrational, to fear drowning is not.Septor said:
The difference between a phobia and a rational fear (such as shy behaviour may indicate) is even evident on brain scans. Phobias are found in a different part of the brain. They have different causes and different developmental patterns, and surely the only thing they have in common is that they both lead to aversion of something. Treatments used to cure irrational fears are not going to work on rational fears regardless of the severity, and vice versa. Can you imagine your behavioural therapist telling someone "now next time you find yourself drowning, just used the techniques we practised, yes deep breathing and go back to your 'happy place'..."
I have noticed the rising frequency of the term 'social anxiety' over 'social phobia' which I suppose is reflective of expert opinion on the matter. It seems convenient to me - you have a patient come to you with anxiety in social situations. Rather than find out the cause, let's give them the most obvious label we can think of: social anxiety. Stick 'disorder' on the end, and no one will question the underlying problem, as 'disorders' are something abnormal, aren't they? You can't relate symptoms to real life if they're caused by a disorder. No one's really sure about their causes, are they?
The truth is, we do know a lot about phobias; more than most anxiety disorders, of which they are a kind by definition. We know what usually causes and cures them, and how they develop - or at least the success rate of treatments based on these theories suggests that we have the right idea. So why has our version gained cult status? Why is it regarded so differently? I have several theories. Mainly, it's just difficult for practical reasons to use the same treatments on social phobias. Probably, they tried and failed, because the best they can hope to recreate in a therapeutic situation is the anticipation anxiety of social phobia, not the object of the phobia itself (disapproval). It would also be very easy for therapists to misunderstand their patient's anxiety altogether. It's quite obvious that some fears are irrational, whereas everyone can relate to feeling anxious in social situations, because there are often rational reasons to hope people won't disapprove of you. Thus they assume you are scared of the same things that they are - consequences/implications of disapproval, rather than the disapproval itself being distressing. I imagine patients with height phobia have the same problem. Everyone spends their time convincing you that you won't fall, you'll be safe, when you might know these thing perfectly well: it's simply knowing you're up high that causes distress, regardless of the physical danger.
I wouldn't have a problem with the above definition if it weren't said to be synonymous with social phobia. 'Social anxiety' could well be an appropriate way of describing symptoms. However to call something a phobia when you don't believe it to necessarily be irrational is confusing and unhelpful. Whether a fear is a rational or irrational should be the first thing decided. You can't go by severity to do that, because both phobias and rational fears are of varying severities. I am working on my arachnophobia now with the same techniques I used for my social phobia, even though it far from disrupts my daily life. It's very mild compared to other spider phobias I've seen. Still, all irrational fears follow the same pattern, so there's no need to treat it any differently or give it a different name. The same would be appropriate for social phobias. I don't think I could have cured mine if I'd thought of it as being a vague 'anxiety disorder' or 'excessive shyness'. What do they mean? I had to learn the rules of the game. In my case, the game was a phobia. For others, also diagnosed with social anxiety, the issue may in fact be rational fears of rejection arising because they doubt their ability to make a good impression when need be. Still shyness. Just two separate causes, only one of which is 'social phobia', and as they've become synonymous, 'social anxiety' an appropriate name for.
Sorry for the length of this post... I've had this discussion before, so wanted to make all likely points now :wink: