Are doctors too quick to medicate social phobias?
By Kyung M. Song Seattle Times staff reporter MICHELLE KUMATA / THE SEATTLE TIMES E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles It’s a serious affliction for those who have it, but its symptoms can also be the bane of ordinary introverts: aversion to cocktail parties, uneasiness with strangers and fear of public attention. As much as any psychiatric condition, social phobia straddles a blurry line between official disorder and normal, though uncomfortable, personality traits. On the surface, sufferers of social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, can seem to be simply “shy persons” as Garrison Keillor would call them. But while shyness describes a temperament, social phobia can be a debilitating condition. People with social anxiety disorder experience severe distress and impairment in ordinary social situations. They hate public scrutiny; even eating in a restaurant causes them discomfort. In social situations, they almost a
