Social phobia or social fear when it's uncovered shows how the imagination can be worked to paint any picture no matter what the truth really is.
Social phobia is a fear of being evaluated and criticized by other people, usually strangers or onlookers.
Sufferers from this condition get highly embarrassed in public to such a degree that actually being out in public becomes really traumatic.
Is this something that is learned and where does it start? Let's see what we can uncover.
One of the most striking things about this condition is that it often starts at a young age and can continue for a lifetime if not addressed at all.
Early childhood is often referred to as the formative years.
Unfortunately, some formative training happens to be negative, especially when it comes to social skills.
Every parent passes on to its children habits and mannerisms of social behaviour.
Not all parents were good social animals themselves so their own thinking can get passed on to their children.
Fear breeds fear.
Up until school age a child is mainly taught by its parents.
When the child starts school, even nursery school, is when it meets up with the ways of other parents as reflected in their children.
When the children start learning from each other they have to start using whatever social skills were passed on to them.
Some children have all the confidence in the world while others are sadly lacking in confidence.
This can be the start of a hard struggle with social acceptance.
At school pupils are, quite obviously, encouraged to do well.
We will all say doing well means achieving the standards set by the school examination marking boards.
In actual fact in the eyes of the parents doing well means coming high up in the class and beating the marks of other children in the same class.
A confident child learns that in order to ensure the desired high position required to please both parents and teachers just doing the required studying may not be enough.
So what some children attempt is the undermining of the confidence of the opposition.
This can mean a very subtle campaign of name calling and war of words against certain other children.
This gives the name caller the feeling that having put down the opposition somehow puts their status up.
A weird concept but perfectly understandable from the aggressors point of view.
I know many adults that still practice this concept.
Some of those children that are on the receiving end of the name calling and confidence undermining undergo a real confidence battering.
This doesn't always show up at first as it becomes a form of conditioning the child lives with.
After all, it sees those involved most days of the week so it sort of becomes 'normal' to them.
However, when they leave school and go out into the big wide world, and different conditions, they can no longer cope.
Instead of that socially undermined child there now exists a socially deficient adult.
Those years of being criticized have led them to believe that everyone will criticize them in the same fashion.
To turn this imagined situation around will take some form of retraining.
Sometimes acceptance into the adult world will be enough.
Others will respond to therapy.
I think that many of us still suffer slightly from it in certain situations.
One of the fastest forms of retraining therapy can come from Neuro Linguistic Programming.
NLP for short.
NLP has cured some phobia sufferers in minutes where traditionally therapy has not worked for years.
Once the imagination has seen something it can believe it can almost instantly change the way a person thinks.
That is why NLP can work so well for social phobia or social fear sufferers.
Social phobia is a fear of being evaluated and criticized by other people, usually strangers or onlookers.
Sufferers from this condition get highly embarrassed in public to such a degree that actually being out in public becomes really traumatic.
Is this something that is learned and where does it start? Let's see what we can uncover.
One of the most striking things about this condition is that it often starts at a young age and can continue for a lifetime if not addressed at all.
Early childhood is often referred to as the formative years.
Unfortunately, some formative training happens to be negative, especially when it comes to social skills.
Every parent passes on to its children habits and mannerisms of social behaviour.
Not all parents were good social animals themselves so their own thinking can get passed on to their children.
Fear breeds fear.
Up until school age a child is mainly taught by its parents.
When the child starts school, even nursery school, is when it meets up with the ways of other parents as reflected in their children.
When the children start learning from each other they have to start using whatever social skills were passed on to them.
Some children have all the confidence in the world while others are sadly lacking in confidence.
This can be the start of a hard struggle with social acceptance.
At school pupils are, quite obviously, encouraged to do well.
We will all say doing well means achieving the standards set by the school examination marking boards.
In actual fact in the eyes of the parents doing well means coming high up in the class and beating the marks of other children in the same class.
A confident child learns that in order to ensure the desired high position required to please both parents and teachers just doing the required studying may not be enough.
So what some children attempt is the undermining of the confidence of the opposition.
This can mean a very subtle campaign of name calling and war of words against certain other children.
This gives the name caller the feeling that having put down the opposition somehow puts their status up.
A weird concept but perfectly understandable from the aggressors point of view.
I know many adults that still practice this concept.
Some of those children that are on the receiving end of the name calling and confidence undermining undergo a real confidence battering.
This doesn't always show up at first as it becomes a form of conditioning the child lives with.
After all, it sees those involved most days of the week so it sort of becomes 'normal' to them.
However, when they leave school and go out into the big wide world, and different conditions, they can no longer cope.
Instead of that socially undermined child there now exists a socially deficient adult.
Those years of being criticized have led them to believe that everyone will criticize them in the same fashion.
To turn this imagined situation around will take some form of retraining.
Sometimes acceptance into the adult world will be enough.
Others will respond to therapy.
I think that many of us still suffer slightly from it in certain situations.
One of the fastest forms of retraining therapy can come from Neuro Linguistic Programming.
NLP for short.
NLP has cured some phobia sufferers in minutes where traditionally therapy has not worked for years.
Once the imagination has seen something it can believe it can almost instantly change the way a person thinks.
That is why NLP can work so well for social phobia or social fear sufferers.