Is social phobia inherited? See if your parents have these traits

Audit expert: Yin Tielun

Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Neurology, Airport Branch, Peking University Third Hospital

Social phobia, commonly known as "social phobia". Although people often "joke" on the Internet that they are socially phobic, in reality, social phobia is far less relaxed than described on the Internet. It is also called Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD).

Source: Internet

Patients often show fear, terror, worry and anxiety in social scenes and public places, and experience severe physiological reactions such as panic, heart palpitations, and hand tremors.

Talk show host Niao Niao once vividly described a scene in his show to truly show the fear of social activities among people with social phobia.

Source: Screenshot of a variety show

This sentence expresses the thoughts of countless people suffering from social phobia, making people laugh and cry, and sigh.

1 Current status of "social phobia"

In recent years, the hot word "social phobia" has frequently appeared on major online platforms and Weibo hot searches, and more and more people are labeling themselves or others as "socially phobic".

This phenomenon certainly shows that people are beginning to pay more attention to their mental health and are becoming more aware of and understanding their own feelings, but it also generalizes this concept and simply attributes it to introversion. They are still fundamentally different from real social phobia patients.

After an epidemiological survey and statistics, the United States listed social phobia as one of the three major psychological disorders in China. According to the research, this disease usually starts in childhood and adolescence, with the age of onset fluctuating around 20 years old, and the course of the disease is about 20 years. Its lifetime prevalence rate is as high as 12%, while the lifetime accompaniment rate of other related mental anxiety disorders , PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is 7%, and obsessive-compulsive disorder is only 2%.

Source: Zhihu

2 Factors that lead to social phobia

Like all mental illnesses, social phobia is often caused by a combination of physiological, psychological and complex environmental factors. Possible factors include:

(1) Family inheritance

People whose parents or siblings suffer from social phobia are more likely to develop the disease. According to research, the probability of first-degree relatives (legal concept, referring to a person's parents, children, and siblings) of patients with social phobia suffering from the disease is 2 to 6 times higher than that of ordinary people. A study on female twins also showed that the heritability of social phobia is 28%.
Although social phobia has genetic factors, it does not play a decisive and dominant role . Therefore, even if a relative suffers from social phobia, there is no need to worry too much.

(2) Neurochemical factors

It is related to the hypersensitivity of the conditioned fear network in our brain structure, which is centered on the amygdala. The amygdala has a great influence on the subject's interaction with the outside world and interpersonal relationships. People with larger amygdala volumes are more willing to communicate with others.

(3) Social psychological factors

It is mainly related to the growth environment and excessive pampering and protection in childhood . They are afraid of interacting with the outside world alone, lack the practice and thinking of establishing a relationship of love and being loved, have a distorted understanding of social interaction, and are more likely to make negative judgments about things with blurred boundaries.

Social phobia may also stem from the trauma of the parents' marriage and the distrust or suspicion of the outside world. From being too lazy to express ideas to not being able to express ideas, the psychological resources consumed in producing opinions are far greater than those of normal people. It may also be that there is no stable social environment at a young age, and as a newcomer, they have been shuttling between different classes and have not established stable and trustworthy peer relationships.

3 How to get out of "social phobia" and tame the psychological beast

People are the sum of social relations. In our daily lives, it is difficult for us to avoid dealing with people. How can people with social phobia tame their fear and participate in normal interpersonal interactions without consuming too many of their psychological resources?

(1) Psychotherapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently recognized as the most scientific and effective psychological therapy for phobias. It is somewhat similar to systematic desensitization, exposing patients to different hypothetical social environments to respond to various scenarios and train their social skills. Overcoming fear is difficult at first, but after the number of exposures and the frequency of contact increase to a certain level, patients can better cope with the most fearful social situations. This method is best carried out by professionals such as psychologists.

(2) Drug intervention

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are usually the first choice for treating persistent social anxiety symptoms, such as paroxetine (Paxil) or sertraline (Zoloft), which are good treatment-related drugs. However, when it comes to psychiatric drugs, you must consult a professional psychiatrist and prescribe the dosage after diagnosis.

Source: pixabay

(3) Affirmation and positive encouragement from the external environment

Never ask social phobia patients from the perspective of ordinary people. Social phobia patients will habitually avoid and deny themselves, so we who are around them should encourage them rather than spur them. It is not just to push them to contact the world and embrace the crowd, but to lead them to communicate with the crowd, let them slowly integrate, and respect their own social time and social scale.

(4) Use your body to create a powerful posture

When you feel very uncomfortable and cramped, you can try to stretch your body, don't hug your chest, don't curl up, and use body movements to give yourself a strong hint. This method is called "embodied cognition."

The relationship between our mind and body is bidirectional, meaning that our brain influences how our body responds, and our body posture triggers our mind.

If you have a tendency to have some of the physical symptoms mentioned above, please seek help from a psychiatrist as soon as possible. Mental illness is no different from any physical illness. Do not hide your illness and avoid seeing a doctor, and do not let yourself live in the shadow of social phobia for a long time. Go out and bask in the sun. The sun is not scorching but warm.