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Social Anxiety Disorder: Social Phobia

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Social Anxiety
Social anxiety disorder, commonly referred to as social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations. Affects eight percent of general population and 3.7% of U.S. citizens. That’s 5.3 million people in one country being affected by social phobia. Twice as many women as men are affected, but men often seek help more than women do. Ironically both men and women are equally apt to developing this disorder. (“Social Phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder), 2015)
Social phobia usually develops in childhood or early adolescence. Typically it will not develop in anyone over the age of twenty five. (Leary and Kowalski, 4) Research has led to the discovery …show more content…
The diagnosis of social phobia can be limited or very broad. A person can have limited social phobia such as eating or writing on the board in front of the class, or it can be as broad as having anxiety about having to interact with anyone outside of their immediate family. Treatments for social phobia can be either medicinal or undergoing some sort of psychotherapy. The most common and best form of treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). (“What is Social Anxiety,” 2015) CBT usually starts on a one to one basis and slowly builds up the person/patient’s confidence to where they feel comfortable in a group therapy session. This is a very essential form of treatment because it helps change the way the subject thinks. It makes it so that they can quit having the thoughts that are keeping them from overcoming their fears. (“What is Social Anxiety,” 2015) It also helps because it exposes …show more content…
From a slight diagnosis to a very broad one it isn’t a rare disorder. It affects quite a few people in the world wide population, and is very common, yet very little is actually known about it. Social phobia can be treated either medicinally or through

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