Is being shy an illness?
By Anna Buckley
BBC News Magazine, Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Most of us are shy to some degree, but acute shyness is one of the most under-recognised mental health problems of the modern age, say some. So when is being shy an illness?
Walking down a busy high street with your cheeks painted like a clown isn't normal behaviour for most people. But it's precisely what is being prescribed for one group of people who desperately want to feel more normal.
People suffering from acute social embarrassment are encouraged to wear ridiculous amounts of blusher in public as part of their treatment at one hospital. It's an unlikely cure for a condition called social phobia. ...
But while some health care professionals argue the condition is under-recognised, others worry the problem is psychiatry itself - labelling people who are just plain shy as having a mental illness.
"Social phobia is yet another example of normal behaviour being re-branded as an illness," says English professor Christopher Lane, author of Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness.
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1 comment:
Interesting post you have here. Social phobia is not easy to overcome. But you can learn from www.whatcausespanicattacks.com
about simple prevention methods. Can be pretty handy.
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