Book Description

Social anxiety is a normal human experience, so it is no surprise that social anxiety disorder is one of the most pervasive psychological disorders. People who struggle with significant social anxiety become so overwhelmingly anxious and self-conscious in social situations that they are typically unable to undertake ordinary activities successfully. Clinicians, social and developmental psychologists, neuroscientists and behavior geneticists have all conducted significant research on the topic over the past 10 years, yet the existing volumes do not tend to integrate these findings. Social Anxiety is the only volume to do so and represents an exciting step forward for anxiety literature. * The most comprehensive source of up-to-date data, with review articles covering a thorough deliniation of social anxiety, theoretical perspectives, and treatment approaches * Consolidates broadly distributed literature into single source, saving researchers and clinicians time in obtaining and translating information and improving the level of further research and care they can provide * Each chapter is written by an expert in the topic area * Provides more fully vetted expert knowledge than any existing work * Integrates findings from various disciplines - clinical, social and developmental psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, - rather than focusing on only one conceptual perspective * Provides the reader with more complete understanding of a complex phenomena, giving researchers and clinicians alike a better set of tool for furthering what we know * Offers coverage of essential topics on which competing books fail to focus, such as: related disorders of adult and childhood; the relationship to social competence, assertiveness and perfectionism; social skills deficit hypothesis; comparison between pharmacological and psychosocial treatments; and potential mediators of change in the treatment of social anxiety disorder population