Social Anxiety Disorder: What Really Helps?
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.People with social anxiety disorder feel profoundly insecure when they are in contact with others. They are afraid of being embarrassed or of being judged negatively. Therefore, they often take refuge in isolation - which has serious effects on private and professional life. The phobia can be brought under control with both medication and psychotherapy. But what is the better strategy?
Swallowing a pill often seems like the quicker and easier way to combat ailments. A lot of work, sometimes painful knowledge and, above all, time must be expended before psychotherapy is effective.
But the effort is worth it: Scientists working with Falk Leichsenring from the University of Giessen have found that psychotherapeutic treatment of social anxiety disorders has a more lasting effect than taking SSRIs. The serotonin reuptake inhibitors are a modern class of antidepressants, but they can also help with social phobia.
“Social anxiety disorder is associated with considerable psychosocial restrictions, which are often more severe than with depression,” says Leichsenring. Together with colleagues, he evaluated the results of a large joint study as part of the “Social Phobia Psychotherapy Research Network”.
Sustainable psychotherapy
The researchers concluded that although psychotropic drugs, especially SSRIs, are effective, the results of psychotherapy are more permanent. "According to current guidelines, psychotherapy is the treatment of choice," the authors write in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Therapist as an anxiety reliever
There are two methods of psychotherapeutic treatment for social phobia: cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy.
In psychodynamic therapy, the causes of the fears are analyzed. To do this, the therapist and client deal with the situations in which the fears arose. Relationships with people from the present and the past play a central role.
As part of cognitive behavioral therapy, those affected learn, among other things, to focus their attention not on themselves, for example during a lecture, but on the audience. Video feedback helps patients correct the distorted ideas they have about themselves.
Cognitive or Psychodynamic?
Which of the two psychotherapies is best for which person has not yet been scientifically clarified, emphasize the scientists: “It depends very much on the individual: For one, the approach of cognitive behavioral therapy is more suitable; the other is more interested in psychodynamic therapy. "
Millions of people affected
Social anxiety disorder affects more than ten million people in Europe. Those affected suffer from the idea of being judged negatively by their fellow human beings. Even going to a restaurant can be a big challenge for them. The causes of social phobia are many. Scientists assume that an interplay between environmental factors, for example an experienced embarrassment, and neurobiological factors trigger the social phobia.
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