Is Social Anxiety Disorder just a fancy name for shyness?

Christopher Lane, in his new book, "Shyness:  How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness" discusses how a normal human behavior became a mental illness requiring medical treatment and the process by which this happened. 

In an article on the Book Slut site Lane describes the attempts by American psychiatry to separate itself from psychology and from the Freudian concepts of experience.  All the intricacies and complexities of the average human are reduced to biological explanations with no consideration of human consciousness.  This has resulted in normal human reactions; thinking, emotions, and behavior now being diagnosed as "disorders" which require professional medical treatment. 

Lane makes a valid and important point.  But I think there is another factor in play as well.  In light of the marked influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the psychiatric community and the formation of the DSM (see Psychiatry Sells Out to Big Pharma) the motivations for reclassifying shyness as a clinical disorder which requires medical, i.e. pharmaceutical, intervention seem apparent.  You can see this same tendency with other diagnoses.  Normal, healthy humans have mood swings.  We have emotional responses to things which happen to us through the course of a day, a week, a lifetime.  But there has been an ever increasing trend to see mood swings as being abnormal.  The patient is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and placed on mood stabilizers - a very serious class of drugs which can have life threatening and permanent side effects.  I have seen this same trend with children who are naturally precocious and outgoing.  Now they are diagnosed with "ADHD" and require medications that are in the same family of drugs as amphetamine and methamphetamine.  Likewise, there are many different forms of "depression" which are not biological.  Many people suffering from "depression" are actually grieving the loss of something; a relationship, a career, their health, etc.  Others are struggling with disillusionment and the need for meaning.  Still others are battling an endless stream of cognitive distortions learned in their family of origin which prevents them from seeing the lighter side of life.   And sometimes, people with depression are simply those who are willing to till the deeper realms of life, to ponder the bigger questions.  Mood swings, precosiousness, and sadness are not abnormal.   They do not require medical intervention.  They are a process of human consciousness, of human emotion.  Lane makes this same point with regard to anxiety, saying:

“the purging of subjectivity” from discussions about anxiety ended up impoverishing what we do know about anxiety, and have known for a very long time, which is that it crosses biology and perception, rather than being reducible to one or the other. Put another way, while the effects of anxiety are obviously biological -- a racing heart, sweaty palms, shortness of breath, and so on -- what triggers those effects is necessarily tied to consciousness."

Lane points out that giving someone a pill for something that does not require a pill can not only subject them to undesirable complications and side effects, but can also increase the symptoms the pill is trying to suppress.

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger".

My concern is that people never learn to overcome things.  They never learn to struggle, to fight, to overcome.  They never develop strengths and master coping skills.  So many things in later life are going to require these strengths and these skills.  If we do not learn to master them, where will we be when the really big problems hit us?  I have worked with many people who are suddenly confronted with the death of a loved one, a serious or terminal illness, or the loss of a career and they have no idea how to cope.  They have no experience of walking through the fire and coming out on the other side because they have always relied on pharmaceutical intervention to address their problems.  They also have no idea how to live with the emotions such problems bring because they have always "controlled" their emotions with medications.   

Restructuring normal human problems and reactions to be "disorders" in need of professional treatment is also very disempowering.  If the only answer for a problem is to go to a doctor and take a pill then our health and well-being always lies in the hands of someone else.  We have no control or influence over our own fate.

 

Comments

[discount pharmacy online]

Being shy is normal emotional feelings that most people experienced, when i was kid, i am a very shy type of person. They said that you can overcome your shyness by joining different sports.

[Social Anxiety Disorder test]

I think shyness is a normal human reaction. Some people have more confidence in themselves and others have less. However, when this shyness becomes a disability then help is necessary. I'm sure you've seen the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale - see http://www.socialanxietydisorderguide.com/social-anxiety-disorder-test/ This can be used to guage whether there is a real problem or not.