The fear of social interaction from the experience of helping professionals

Abstract

Social Anxiety, also known as social phobia, is a form of an anxiety disorder. This disorder is usually related with excessive self- consciousness in everyday situations. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper insight of the fear of social interaction from the experience of helping professionals. Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with helping professionals who have dealt with clients diagnosed as having social anxiety. Through the emergent results, it was noted that social anxiety disorder is a very common condition locally, and that it typically has its onset at an early age however it is not evident until a person reaches adolescent years. This is because the demands at this age become much more difficult to deal with. Helping psychologists agreed that through therapy they would help their clients to change their cognitions so that people with social anxiety reduce their unrealistic fears of social interaction.