27 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Social Norms and Psychological Disorders
Before 1980, this would have seemed a strange question. Social anxiety disorder did not officially exist until it appeared in that year’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM-III, the psychiatrist’s bible of mental disorders, under the name “social phobia.” It was not widely known until the 1990s, when pharmaceutical companies received F.D.A. approval to treat social anxiety with S.S.R.I.’s and poured tens of millions of dollars into advertising its existence. The current v...Shyness becomes "Social Anxiety Disorder" because we live in a society that values outgoing people over people who are introspective.