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Shyness and social anxiety, when present may play a vital role in the quality of life of an individual. They are not, however, mutually exclusive of one another, and one may point to the existence of the other. If you suffer from social anxiety, then you will display symptoms of shyness, but you can display symptoms oh shyness, even quite severe ones, without actually having a social anxiety disorder.
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Shyness is a natural tendency of human beings when faced with unfamiliar social circumstances or situations. Social anxiety is much less common than shyness. People often find it hard to differentiate between the two, so lets now look at the underlying characteristics of each of them, with the intention of making it easier.
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Lets take a young girl being presented by her parents to a young boy as an example. The young girl may exhibit shyness in the form of being unable to talk to the young boy. If she suffered from social phobia, she would first refuse to even meet the boy, then on being made to, she would say nothing to him, and then she would make an excuse to leave as soon as possible. In that manner, one can say that shyness is a milder form of social anxiety.
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That, however, may not be entirely accurate since being in a subset varies only in degree when compared to the whole. Therefore, for a diagnosis of social anxiety to be made, someone must display more characteristics of social anxiety than just shyness. For example, someone suffering from social anxiety often trembles and physically cannot say words properly.
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If the young girl in the example was only shy, that it is unlikely that she would be a social anxiety sufferer. Shyness is different from social anxiety in that it can be treated with constant exposure and repetitive contact with groups of people. The same can also be effective in social anxiety. A person who fears being in a social situation may exhibit a different attitude with regards to social settings when the social venue is expanded slowly. It is really a case of taking one step at a time and only moving on to the next step when the sufferer feels comfortable with the last one.
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The good news is that both shyness and social anxiety are now treatable, as not so long ago medical professionals did not really know how to deal with them. Help is there for those that want it, and they should ask for it as soon as they feel that their problem is affecting their ability to make the progress in their life that they would like to. There are proven methods and techniques available that have worked on even severe sufferers, so you can rest assured that however bad you think your problem is, there is hope for you.
You can obtain more information on the subject of overcoming social anxiety and social phobia treatment here.
