Social Anxiety Symptoms

Video Transcript

"I'm Dr. David Thomas, I'm a practicing psychotherapist in Tampa, Florida with Whitford Thomas Group. Today I'm going to speak to you about social anxiety symptoms. Social anxiety falls under the category, general category of anxiety. Social anxiety seems to be directed specifically to social situations. When we talk about anxiety, generally speaking we're talking about primarily a thinking cause. Anxiety has not only thinking component, but often times has a chemistry. Not all anxiety is thinking driven, but all emotions have a thinking component. Some anxiety is driven by a chemical imbalance in the system. So if we talk about social anxiety, the thinking that's associated with social anxiety is first you have to have a what if and so as you look into the future. You cannot experience anxiety in the present. All anxiety is future related. The next thinking component of anxiety is some type of awfulizing catastrophizing, making a mountain out of a molehill. The third component of anxiety as far as the thoughts go are what we call the I can't standitis. So we're talking about the thinking that drives the anxiety, we're looking at what if plus a catastrophizing statement plus a I can't standitis. Almost all social anxiety tends to be performance related, some over concern of what people might think of you. So certainly one of the kind of cures if you will, is dispute and challenge your thinking, but also to get out there and practice and do, do, do recognizing that the world will not collapse, you will not, eyeballs won't pop out of your head, is simply is that you'll survive whatever the environment is at that time. I'm Dr. David Thomas, speaking today about social anxiety."