Question

James, age 12, has been diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. His main worry is that other people will think he is stupid or boring. James does not answer questions in class and rarely talks to his peers during lunch and recess. Which of the following is an exposure activity that James’ therapist might have him practice early in treatment?

(a) Listing things that could go wrong if he talked to a peer

(b) Giving a speech in front of the class

(c) Petting a dog

(d) Saying hi to a friendly classmate

Answer 1

James, age 12 who has been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder whose main worry is what if the other people consider him as stupid or boring. The james therapist might have used exposure threapy in helping james come out of his social anxiety. The earlier exposure activity practiced by james therapist will be (A) LISTING THINGS THAT COULD GO WRONG IF HE TALKED TO A PEER.

SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER:

Social anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder in which a person experiences symptoms of anxiety in certain or all social situations such as meeting new people, dating, being in a job interview, answeing a question in class, etc.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

• blush, sweat, tremble, feelings of mind-going blank
• feelings of nausea
• rigid body posture
• little eye contact
• self conscious infront of others
• afraid of other's judgement
• stay awake from places filled with people.

TREATMENTS

1. psychotherapy
2. medications
3. support groups

EXPOSURE THERAPY: This is one of the method of psychotherapy. EXPOSURE THERAPY IS BASED ON THE IDEA OF FEAR OF "EXTINCTION". when forced to confront a fear for long enough period time, the mind essentially adapts to the stimulus that causes that fear to the point where it stops finding it stressful altogether.

EXPOSURE THERAPY FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER:

• GET TO KNOW YOUR SOCIAL ANXIETY BETTER
• BUILD A FEAR LADDER
• CLIMB THE FEAR LADDER

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR SOCIAL ANXIETY BETTER:

james therapist on knowing what is the thing which is causing the problem for james will try to explore the other things or dig deeper into the things which is causing social anxiety to james. by doing this, james will get to know about his social anxiety much better and the causes for this things

BUILD A FEAR LADDER:

after getting aware about the situations on which the james will get social anxiety, now the therapist with the help of james has to frame a fear ladder (a ordered list or hiearchy of the things begining with the least scary to the most scary). therapist may frame things like

• james talking to his parents
• james talking to himself
• james trying to talk to his best friend over a phone
• james talking or saying 'hi' to one of his peer
• james talking for 5min with his peer
• james talking to his classmates
• james talking infront of class
• james talking to unknown people

?CLIMB THE FEAR LADDER

with the help of therapist, now the person has to cross the fear ladder on at a time. now james has to overcome his fears one by one carefully to completely overcome his fear

KEY POINTS IN MANAGING SOCIAL ANXIETY

• BOTTOM UP
• TRACK PROGRSS
• FEELING ANXIOUS
• DON'T AVOID
• DON'T RUSH
• STICK WITH IT
• RECURIT HELP