Thursday, August 7, 2008

Shyness and anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common problems faced by man. It can be secondary to the most profound (existential anguish!) to the most mundane issues (anxiety over one's performance in a social situation). Shyness is very prevalent in children and can be a precursor of later development of social anxiety. If this is handled properly in childhood itself, later anxiety disorders may be prevented.
It is important that shy children should not be treated harshly or made fun of by others. They should be told that some amount of shyness is normal during childhood and that things will ease out as they grow older. Another important remedial measure is to prevent the child avoiding social situations causing shyness. They should be persuaded gently, but persistently, to participate in situations causing shyness. May be they can start with situations causing tolerable amounts of shyness, and then proceed to more difficult situations. Initially it is better to start with socializing with small crowds, or groups with more number of familiar faces. Later they can venture out to larger groups and strangers after gaining some confidence. 'Prevention is better and easier than cure'

This principle is the basis of the current treatment for many anxiety disorders. This is called 'exposure and response prevention.' Here the affected person is exposed to the anxiety provoking situation and fleeing is not allowed. Gradually the person learns to control his anxiety.
Medication (anxiolytics) are also used for treatment of these disorders. But caution is warranted as some of these drugs cause dependence or it may be difficult to stop them. Relapses are common after discontinuation. It is better to use psychological methods along with drugs to reduce such relapses.

2 comments:

Devadas said...

A different openion about shyness.

I 'believe' that shyness is an inheritable charecter(of mind) of animals( other examples being magnanimity,selfishness etc) like colour of skin,eyes,hair ,tall or short stature, etc of body.
Society has it's own perception about each charecter as good,bad,prefered,etc which vary depending on multiple factors.


To become successful the individuals in the society will try to make their inherited charecters as similar as that of the most preferred charecter.For example in a society where fair skin colour is preferred, people will use white powders to hide their dark skin colour.(another example is high heel )At times this futile exercise make life miserable for many unfortunate fellows.It is a major cause for depression and even suicide of many unfortunate fellows.
I agree that this type of concepts has 'survivial advantage' for some individuals in the highly market oriented society but as a species this tendency is disciminative and deplorable .

We can see the maturity of a society by it's attitude towards individual charecters and in the most mature community individual charecters will be honoured or respected( unless it is dangerous to other members or themself, for example criminal tendency).

The changed attitude of some countries towards different sexual orientation of human beings is a positive sign and some time later people with shyness or anxiety will not be compelled to treat their shyness or anxiety .


At present people may volunteer treatment or will consume drugs or alcohol to get rid off their charecter as they are well aware of the society's cruel attitude or disrespect for individual charecters.

Devadas said...

Shyness..opinion..Continuation.

Though in our society , shyness is an undesirable charecter,it has some important roles to play .

A balanced society should have people with different charecteristics where all are honoured with equel status,unless it is a threat for other members or the enviourment.At present shy people are uncomfortable because of the attitude of others , and therefor a changed outlook of the society can remove this difficulty.

Shyness may have some advantage over smartness.The shyness will compel the person to reduce the time spend for socialisation/entertainment/adventure and will be reflecting more or imaginating things in his mind( or using his imagination more).So the time spend by each individual on thinking alone may have some relationship with the degree of shyness he has..In other words this charecter may be accomplishing some role in the intellectual advancement of the society.