Social Phobias: A Case Study

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Foremost, phobias are an anxiety disorder that creates a perpetual, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or environment (Myers, 2012). When broken down, there are three distinct type of phobias that an individual can be diagnosed with. The first is specific phobia, which deals with an individual having a fear of a specific object or environment (Preda, 1994-2014). Hence, that said individual might display the symptoms of having a specific phobia towards a certain stimuli that invokes that sense of fear. Thus, an individual having a specific phobia is usually focused on avoiding that particular stimuli because it invokes fear (Preda, 1994-2014). Therefore, an individual will associate their fears with a specific object or situation …show more content…
These individuals might tend to display a fear of engaging a group of people within a public setting (Preda, 1994-2014). As a result, making it difficult for an individual to experience any kind of social interaction within society. Conjointly, individuals with a social phobia have an intense fear of being judged by others. They avoid threatening social engagements, such as addressing large groups, dining out, or even interacting with their peers with a social setting (Preda, 1994-2014). Hence, an individual that displays a social phobia experiences a fear of having to engage society when it comes to a public setting. Therefore, those said individuals tend to become isolated from society because the fear of presenting themselves within a social environment becomes overwhelming for them. As a result, social phobia can prevent an individual from expressing their thoughts, beliefs, or concerns about the world around …show more content…
In accordance, approximately 4 to 5% of the U.S population has one or more clinically significant phobias within a given year. Specific phobias affect an estimated 6.3 million adult Americans and are twice as common amongst women as they are in men (Gresley, 2011). The average age for social phobia is between 15 and 20 years of age, although it can begin in early childhood (Gersley, 2011). Subsequently, then a population continually develops phobias as the years go on. However, thou phobias are usually associated with adulthood, children are still susceptible to developing a phobia. Thereupon, affecting generations of people to experience a plethora of debilitating phobias that could not only affect their lives, but the lives of the population that surrounds

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