Shyness and social anxiety, when present may play a vital role in the quality of life of an individual. It is a common mistake to think that they are one and the same, but that is not the case. 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.
Shyness is a natural tendency of human beings when faced with unfamiliar social circumstances or situations. Social anxiety on the other hand manifests itself in a variety of ways that does not only include shyness. To be able to determine whether someone is shy or someone has social anxiety, we must go back to the roots of these two and see if they indeed characterize on another.
Lets take a young girl being presented by her parents to a young boy as an example. The young girl will often feel shy and find it difficult to talk freely in front of 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.
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.
Without the additional symptoms of social anxiety, the behavior shown by the girl could thus only be labeled as shyness. Shyness is much easier to treat than social anxiety, and often regular exposure to, and interaction with, groups of people solves the problem. A similar can, be not always, be effective in treating social anxiety too. 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.
In the end, shyness and social anxiety are not permanently debilitating conditions. If shyness or social anxiety are a problem for you then you should not hesitate to ask for help. 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.
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