Body: | Phobias: Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) is pure Junk science.
Psychiatry is Junk science
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Snapshot: Phobia
Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) is one of many specific categories of anxiety in DSM-5. Anxiety is a behaviour choice not a disease.
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A. Snapshot summary: Phobia
1. Social Anxiety Disorder, also known as Social Phobia, is a
behaviour choice not a disease.
2. People become anxious because they lack self-control.
3. People can feel panic for many reasons:
a. Seeing a spider or snake.
b. Being in public.
c. Suddenly remembering they are 3 payments behind on their
mortgage.
4. Treating Anxiety Disorders with drugs is like smashing a
computer because of a software virus.
5. While people may condition and train themselves to experience
sudden panic fits for an infinite number of specific things, it is not a
disease.
6. Jesus commands us to be anxious for nothing. Anxiety is a
sinful behaviour choice which is "cured" through self-control not drugs.
B. What biopsychiatrists, drug companies and governments say:
Notice they admit they have no idea what causes it: "Research to define
causes of social anxiety is ongoing"
1. What Causes Social Anxiety Disorder? Research to define causes
of social anxiety is ongoing. Some investigations implicate a small
structure in the brain called the amygdala in the symptoms of social
anxiety. The amygdala is believed to be a central site in the brain that
controls fear responses. ... What Treatments Are Available for Social
Anxiety? Research supported by NIMH and by industry has shown that there
are two effective forms of treatment available for social anxiety: certain
medications and a specific form of short-term psychotherapy called
cognitive-behavioral therapy. Medications include antidepressants such as
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and monoamine oxidase
inhibitors (MAOIs), as well as drugs known as high-potency benzodiazepenes.
(Social Anxiety Disorder, Freedom From Fear, Staten Island, NY, National
non-profit Mental Illness Advocacy Organization)
2. Treatment of Anxiety Disorders: In general, anxiety disorders
are treated with medication, specific types of psychotherapy, or both
(Anxiety Disorders, National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH, 2006)
3. Scientists currently think that, like heart disease and type 1
diabetes, mental illnesses are complex and probably result from a
combination of genetic, environmental, psychological, and developmental
factors. ... Several parts of the brain are key actors in the production of
fear and anxiety. (Anxiety Disorders, National Institute of Mental Health,
NIMH, 2006)
4. "Among the most tenacious nosological disagreements are
incidences when it is suspected that a normal behavior has been mislabeled
as abnormal in the DSM. Recent debates have focused on whether or not
gender identity disorder (Bartlett, Vasey, and Bukowski, 2000), acute
stress disorder (Harvey and Bryant, 2002; Marshall, Spitzer, and Liebowitz,
1999), and social anxiety disorder (Campbell-Sills and Stein, 2005;
Swinson, 2005; Wakefield, Horwitz, and Schmitz, 2005) are examples of
mental illness or normal problems in living. Nonetheless, each of these
disorders remains in the DSM." (The Journal of mind and behavior, Guy A.
Boysen, v28, p 157-173)
5. "Etiology: Biological Theories: Several biological theories of
panic disorder are prominent in the psychiatric literature. We summarize
the evidence for or against some of the most promising of these. Certain
agents have a powerful and specific capacity to induce panic, in contrast
with other agents that produce prominent physiological changes but fail to
induce panic. These findings argue strongly against the notion that panic
is a reaction to nonspecific distressing stimuli and suggest more specific
biological bases, even if these involve multiple neurochemicals and
circuits. The various theories discussed in this subsection need not be
viewed as mutually exclusive, but rather as potentially interlocking pieces
of a larger puzzle Neurochemical, imaging, and genetic findings are
described as well." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003
AD, p 549)
6. "Psychosocial theories. A number of mechanisms are proposed by
learning theories as contributors to the pathogenesis of social phobia (Ost
1987; Stemberger et al. 1995). These include direct exposure to socially
related traumatic events, vicarious learning through observing others
engaged in such traumatic situations, and information transfer, things that
one hears in various contexts regarding social interactions. There is a
significant familial component to social phobia, part of which is thought
to be heritable (see "Genetics" under "Biological Theories" subsection
below) and part acquired. Parents, whether socially anxious themselves or
not, might rear socially anxious children through various mechanisms such
as lack of adequate exposure to social situations and development of social
skills, over protectiveness, control-ling and critical behavior, modeling
of socially anxious behaviors, and fearful information conveyed about
social situations (Hudson and Rapee 2000)." (Textbook of Clinical
Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 573)
7. "Biological theories. Genetics. A strong familial risk for
social phobia has been identified, which is believed to be partly heritable
and partly environmental. First-degree relatives of probands with
generalized social phobia have an approximately 10-fold higher risk for
generalized social phobia or avoidant personality disorder (M.B. Stein et
al. 1998a). ... Neurochemistry. Neurochemical studies of social phobia have
not been as systematic or as consistently replicated." (Textbook of
Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 574)
8. "Phobias: Etiology: Psychodynamic Theory: With the 1909
publication of the case of Little Hans, Freud started to develop a
psychological theory of phobic symptom formation (Freud 1909/1955). Little
Hans was a 5-year-old boy who developed a phobia of horses. Through an
analysis of the boy's conversations with his parents over a period of
months, Freud hypothesized that Little Hans's unconscious and forbidden
sexual feelings for his mother and aggressive, rivalrous feelings for his
father, blocked from discharge because of repression, became
physiologically transformed into anxiety, which was then displaced onto a
symbolic object, in this case horses, the avoidance of which partly
relieved Little Hans's anxiety. Freud later reconceptualized the case of
Little Hans in the context of his evolving structural theory. Freud
postulated that phobic symptoms occur as part of the resolution of
intrapsychic conflict between instinctual impulses, superego prohibitions,
and external reality constraints. Signal anxiety is experienced by the ego
when such unconscious impulses threaten to break through. Such anxiety
serves to mobilize not only further repression but, in the case of phobia
formation, projection and displacement of the conflict onto a symbolic
object, which can then be avoided as a neurotic solution to the original
conflict. In the case of Little Hans, sexual feelings for his mother,
aggressive feelings toward his father, and the guilty fear of retribution
and castration by his father generated anxiety as a signal of oedipal
conflict. The conflict became displaced and projected onto an avoidable
object, horses, which Little Hans consequently feared would bite him.
According to Freud, such a phobic symptom had two advantages. It avoided
the ambivalence inherent in Little Hans's original conflict, as he not only
hated but also loved his father. It also allowed his ego to cease
generating anxiety as long as he could avoid the sight of horses. The cost
of this compromise was that Little Hans had become housebound.
Psychodynamic work with phobias, then, focuses on the symbolic meanings
that the phobic object carries for any individual and the conflicts which
is serves to avoid." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky,
2003 AD, p 580)
9. "Phobias: Behavioral Theories: In learning theory, phobic
anxiety is thought to be a conditioned response acquired through
association of the phobic object (i.e., the conditioned stimulus) with a
noxious experience (i.e., the unconditioned stimulus). Initially, the
noxious experience (e.g., an electric shock) produces an unconditioned
response of pain, discomfort, and fear. If the individual frequently
receives an electric shock when in contact with the phobic object, then by
contiguous conditioning the appearance of the phobic object alone may come
to elicit an anxiety response (i.e., conditioned response). Avoidance of
the phobic object prevents or reduces this conditioned anxiety and is
therefore perpetuated through drive reduction. This classical learning
theory model of phobias has received much reinforcement from the relative
success of behavioral (i.e., deconditioning) techniques in the treatment of
many patients with specific phobias." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry,
Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 580)
C. Social Phobia:
1. Social Phobia is the fear of being in public, large crowds
being in a church service.
2. Social phobia provides a number of benefits:
a. you can control when other's ask you to go out into the
public. If you don't want to go out, you can use it as an excuse.
b. You can use social phobia as a great excuse to miss church!
c. Being afraid to be in public is a great excuse for not
finding a job.
d. It's all bunk!
e. Social phobia is a behaviour choice. You simply need to
identify the benefits as to why they have chosen to act like they are
afraid of being in public.
f. If they really are afraid of being in public, it is time
to unlearn this fear, because they were not born that way.
3. I remember a story I was told about a member of the church who
was seeking disability welfare and chose Social Phobia as the "diagnosis of
choice" to convince the psychiatrist she was mentally ill and be declared
disabled.
a. At the time she was on standard welfare, which paid bare bones
cash each month. By getting herself declared "mentally ill" she would get
literally twice the monthly cash in welfare payments. Disability pays much
more than welfare.
b. Typical of the "mentally ill", she needed to convince everyone
around her that she had social phobia. This, in her mind, would enhance her
chances of convincing the psychiatrist!
c. She asked the preacher if she could get up before the church
and tell them all to pray for her social phobia from the pulpit.
d. The preacher laughed at her and said: So you want to stand up
in front of a crowd of 300 people and tell them all about how you are
afraid of standing up in front of a crowd because you have a disease called
social phobia! She blinked a few times, knowing she was busted. It was a
conn and now her preacher knew for sure!
D. I don't like spiders, snakes and mice: How to overcome any phobia!
1. Phobia comes from the Greek word for fear.
2. We were not born fearing anything.
3. We have learned every single fear we have.
4. Fearing snakes and spiders is something we learned.
5. Any phobia we have learned can be unlearned.
6. Phobia is a behaviour choice not a disease.
7. Phobias are hysteria. See main page on Hysteria.
8. All phobias are hysteria. See main page on Hysteria.
9. TV programs have actually documented how extremely spider
phobic women can hold the spider at the end of the program.
10. "Many come to believe that spiders work in teams to watch them and
follow them around. "I once ran outside completely naked," one woman
confessed to Britain's Daily Telegraph. "I was about to have a shower and
spotted two huge spiders on the wall. Luckily, it was sunny, so I hid in
the garden until my husband came home."" (The Spiritual Brain, Mario
Beauregard Ph.D., Neuroscientist, 2007, p137)
11. "Generally, spider phobia can be cured. Cognitive behavior therapy
(CBT) is especially effective. CBT consists of two parts. Phobics (1)
gradually desensitize themselves to the presence of spiders and (2) learn
natural facts about spiders that resolve fears. (For example, spiders do
not work in teams, and they never stalk humans.) But reorganizing one's
mind and brain around the nature of spiders raises a question of what is
really happening. Is the phobic's brain simply being reprogrammed by
outside forces, or is a mind that makes choices controlling and
reorganizing its brain?" (The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard Ph.D.,
Neuroscientist, 2007, p137)
12. "These findings suggest that, without drugs, devices, rewards, or
threats, the phobic subjects had gradually rewired their own brains over
the four weeks, so that they no longer felt the fear that had limited their
lives. They support the conclusions of previous PET studies showing that
psychotherapy can lead to adaptive regional brain metabolic changes in
patients suffering from major depression and OCD. They also indicate that
the changes made at the mind level, through psychotherapy, can functionally
"rewire" the brain. In other words, "change the mind and you change the
brain."" (The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard Ph.D., Neuroscientist,
2007, p 139, He gives two case examples: Archives of General Psychiatry 53,
1996, 109-13 and 58, 2001, 631-40)
13. "A nonmaterialist [ie. that man has a spirit distinct from his body]
approach to the mind is not only philosophically defensible; it is critical
to alleviating some psychiatric disorders. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
and phobias, for example, may be more effectively alleviated if the mind
recognizes and reorganizes destructive brain patterns. This is not to
disparage the role of drugs, therapy, or other useful interventions, but
ultimately the mind is the most effective agent of change for the brain."
(The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard Ph.D., Neuroscientist, 2007, p 126)
D. Cases of phobia, anxiety and hysteria:
Hysteria
Shampoo, Hooky, Sponge, Crutches, Deferred, Bedridden, Mouse, Amnon
Social Phobia (SP)
Mouse
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Potato, River
Panic Disorder (PD)
Post-Traumatic/Stress disorder (PTSD)
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Sunshine
Conclusion:
1. Anxiety is an emotion that results from a choice whose
origin is the human spirit.
a. Anxiety is a behaviour choice not a disease.
b. It is important to ask, "What benefit is this individual
deriving from engaging in this behaviour of anxiety." Often anxiety is a
means to an end for personal gain.
c. There is no scientific evidence that any anxiety disorder
is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
d. Jesus commanded us not to be anxious. Work on your
self-control instead of drugs to free yourself of all anxiety.
2. All Phobias are learned behaviour that can be unlearned.
a. Phobias are Hysteria.
b. Jesus told us that perfect love drives out fear.
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.
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