Essay on Phobias

Social anxiety, also known as social phobia, is a feeling of fear and discomfort of being judged badly by other people. Anyone can experience this at work, school, special events, and even at doing everyday things. Many people have experienced a feeling like this and that is normal. But having a social anxiety disorder can have a huge affect in someone’s life style. The effects of having disorder can lead to bad results in life.

Known as a mental disorder a phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it. Phobias tend to affect the way people live their lives, for example, their working and social environments, considering that they last for a very long time and are capable to cause intense psychological physical stress. It is considered today the most common mental and anxiety disorder in the United States (Matig Mavissakalian & David H. Barlow 1981 pp 2). There are many phobias such as: the fear of aging, fear of changing, fear of clowns, fear of getting fat, fear of being in closed spaces, etc.

Social phobia very common in America, affecting 15 million, and some people confuse this with the occasional nervousness that comes. An example to distinguish between the two would be taking a public speaking class. If a normal person is nervous, they might sweat and stutter, but someone who as a case of social anxiety would try to skip the class entirely and when they finally spoke, they would have lots of troubles speaking. Another is example is giving a speech. It’s perfectly normal to get nervous before giving a big speech, but if you have social anxiety disorder or social phobia, you might worry for days or weeks before it. The individual will do everything to do anything to get out of it, like calling in sick. Someones social anxiety is often triggered by events like meeting new people, being the center of attention (like at a birthday party), being watched while performing a task, public speaking, including speaking up, being teased, etc. People with this mental illness also suffer from negative thoughts, such as “People will think I’m dumb.”, that disable them being apart of the norm. In terms of treatment, psychoanalysis is often used. They use cognitive behavior therapy, a special kind of psychoanalysis. This kind of psychoanalysis is primarily used for

You are in an airport waiting for your plane to arrive. You've never flown before, and are more terrified than you can ever remember being. Everyone has told you the supposedly comforting statistics - "millions of planes take off each day and there's only a handful of crashes," "flying is safer than driving." You know rationally that there is no reason to be so scared, but regardless your heart is racing, your palms are sweating, and you're light-headed. Simply the thought of being up in the air, out of control, makes you feel faint. Finally the flight attendant announces that your plane has arrived. But as all the other passengers line up to get onboard, you grab your luggage and walk straight out of the airport,

This essay will discuss the mental disorder known as Social Phobia. The major symptoms of this disorder will be identified before critically considering the difficulties regarding the diagnosis of Social Phobia. Biological and psychosocial explanations will be explored and evaluated appropriately in order to gain a better understanding of this disorder. Furthermore, the treatments in terms of medication and behavioural therapies will be scrutinised and appraised suitably.

Social anxiety disorder, which is also called social phobia involves overwhelming worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. The worry often centers on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or lead to ridicule. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. The anxiety can build into a panic attack. As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether. In addition, people with social anxiety disorder often suffer anticipatory anxiety, the fear of a situation before it even happens, for days or weeks before the event. In many cases, the person is aware that the fear is unreasonable, yet is unable to overcome it. (Goldberg)

Everyone experience fear occasionally in their life, but there are some who experience fears that are so intense that their daily lives are disturbed. An extreme fear towards a specific object or situation that is relentless and illogical to the point that a person avoids confronting the situation or object at all cost is known as a phobia. This anxiety disorder can interfere with the a person’s body and mind causing severe symptoms and disturbances to one’s everyday life, eventually leading to long hours of treatment with professional helpers. Many theories have been proposed to explain how phobias have developed, but the real challenge is to propose a

Social Phobia is an Anxiety disorder where the sufferer fears being negatively judged or evaluated by others and therefore they are afraid of doing something to embarrass or humiliate themselves in public.

Social Phobia, also called social anxiety disorder (SAD), is one of the most common, but misconstrued mental health problems in society. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), over 15 million adults suffer from the disorder. First appearing in the DSM-III as Social Phobia, and later in the DSM-IV as Social Anxiety Disorder, this newly established disorder denotes afflicting stress and anxiety associated with social situations (Zakri 677). According to James W. Jefferson, two forms of Social phobia exist: specific and generalized. Specific social phobia indicates anxiety limited to few performance situations, while generalized indicates anxiety in all social situations (Jefferson). Many people often interchangeably link this disorder to shyness––a personality trait. However, although they have striking similarities, the two are divergent. To begin with, SAD has an extensive etiology ranging from multiple factors. Furthermore, symptoms of various aspects accompany SAD. Moreover, SAD has detrimental impacts affecting quality of life. Lastly, SAD has numerous methods of treatment. Social Phobia is prevalent in both women and men beginning at the onset of puberty (ADAA).

‘Social phobia is characterised by intense and persistent fear of social situations in which scrutiny and embarrassment could occur’. (Orsillo & Hammond 2001, p.159) The individual with social phobia often feels they are being looked at, studied and critically analysed. Social anxiety is unlike other phobias in that it has the constant likelihood of being verified as being true. (Beck 2005, p.151)

Fear is a normal and an important human reaction to something dangerous, it keeps one out of danger, because fear is disliked and one tries ones best to avoid the object or situation of fear. It causes physical changes known as fight-or-flight reaction, which causes blood pressure to increase and the heart rate to speed up to pump blood to the large muscles used to run away, to balance this the human body has sweat glands which produce perspiration to cool the body.

Social anxiety disorder (social phobia) can be described as an extreme, persistent fear of being scrutinized or judged by others in social situations. This fear may lead to feelings of embarrassment, humiliation and self-consciousness. People who suffer from this condition may “feel powerless against their anxiety” (ADAA). These emotions often interfere with daily activities, such as school, work and personal relationships. The person might begin to withdraw socially or avoid situations in which he or she is afraid. Millions of Americans endure this devastating condition every day of their lives. There are several causes, symptoms and treatments.

An unpleasant emotion or feeling caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat : Fear. Fear is a strong word, it can mean a variety of things and lead to a variety of things depending on who you are. My fear caused me to shake and tremble as if the world was coming to an end. It makes me feel safe around no one. I look back on my life and ask myself, was it all worth it for this? It makes me shrink and fall the size of of a humming bird. My stomach starts to feel like it never has before. My head is spinning in circles and my hands are trembling to the point where I think they might fall off.

According to my dictionary, Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. When the word "fear" comes to my mind, I think of an emotion that's caused by a bad situation. There are many things in this world that put fear in me. My greatest fears are computer viruses, thugs, sick people, and clowns. Each of these fears make me very scared and give me goosebumps.

Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is a disorder in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. Social Anxiety causes intense nervousness and self-consciousness arises from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and criticized by others.