Burstein Social Anxiety

Summary Of “When to get anxious about Social Anxiety Disorder” In this article titled “When to get anxious about Social Anxiety Disorder”, the author Marcy Burstein begins by explaining what social anxiety is and why it generally hits the adolescent population the hardest. Adolescence can be a very difficult transitioning time for most teens. They have to learn to adjust to the increased amount of academic pressures, new peers, increased responsibilities and navigating through new romantic relationships. With this many potential stressors it is not surprising that many have difficulty adjusting and as a result avoid any situations that may cause them discomfort such as social gatherings, parties, class discussions, etc. This type of behavior can eventually lead to preventing certain social developmental milestones from being reached. Burstein then goes on to …show more content…
Or excessive shyness, SAD affects fewer persons while demonstrating significantly greater impairment and associated psychiatric comorbidity. In addition, work has also shown that some adolescents who meet criteria for SAD are not considered to be shy by others, suggesting that the relationship between the 2 conditions is not always a matter of degree”(Burstein,33).Burstein suggests that shyness be considered as normal and natural reaction to a situation. Social Anxiety on the other hand, should be recognized differently as a nonnormative reaction”By contrast, SAD may be considered a nonnormative pattern of feelings and behavior—a pattern that results in substantial distress or impairment in important areas of functioning” (Burstein, 33) The distinction between shyness and social anxiety can be better seen by examining the differences in their responses to specific social situations. Burstein provides a specific example in which a clear difference between shyness and social anxiety can be identified. ”consider an invitation to a large