Social Anxiety Assessments
July 10th, 2006 by Ryan Oelke
When I realized that I struggled with social anxiety I never took any sort of formal assessment. My assessment was picking up Painfully Shy and reading it, experiencing “a-ha’s!” one after the other. I wonder how many others have had the same experience? I really didn’t need anyone to give me a formal assessment. However, assessments are great because they do help to narrow the possibilities, and if someone struggles with a mental health disorder, the assessment is a learning process in and of itself.
Out of the social anxiety assessments listed on our resource page, I found Painfully Shy’s SAD self-assessment to be the most thorough, and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale to be the best attempt at a more scientific approach. Painfully Shy’s assessment covers fears, avoidance behaviors, and physical symptoms. Taking it again gave me both a positive rush and a little bit of anxiety. A rush because I feel like I have perspective on what happens for me; anxiety because it focuses me on the problem, when I usually try to “ignore” it. Taking an assessment pushes me to embrace my social anxiety and to do something about it rather than simply avoid situations and attempt to deny my feelings.
The Liebowitz scale, although not complete in my opinion, is a good because it takes into account intensity of fear and frequency of avoidance behavior. Doing this is helpful because it helps me to get a more personal assessment of my own social anxiety - we’re not all the same. Also, as the test indicates, it’s also supposed to be beneficial in tracking progress, something I haven’t done personally, but have done with clients. So, if I have moderate fear in small groups and avoid them on occasion, I could try some techniques and aim to experience only mild fear and rarely avoid these situations. The problem I have with this scale is the situations are ambiguous. For example, some small groups don’t bother me much at all, while others scare the hell out of me. It’s hard to lump them together.
One thing I’m going to try is noting all the specific situations I avoid and the various feelings/thoughts I have. Then I could use this as both an assessment and motivation over time.
What’s your experiences with assessments, both initial assessment and understanding your social anxiety, and in assessing your progress?
I am currently on a meditation retreat and will respond to comments when I return August 20. Feel free to comment as fellow readers and the authors will join in.
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Francis wrote on 07/11/06 at 2:55 pm :
I took the Liebowitz scale test, very interesting. I agree with you, some small groups I’m fine with.. at work I’m comfortable expressing my opinions and speaking up in meetings. But at club meetings I still freeze up and am terrified. So it depends.
My results:
28 (fear) + 36 (avoidance) = 64
So I guess I’m moderately socially phobic according to that. Probably about right.
Aaron wrote on 07/13/06 at 10:14 pm :
For me it’s any group of people I don’t know well. Around people I know I can speak up but if I don’t them, even if the group is small, it’s very difficult for me to say anything.
Interesting the different things that give various people the most trouble.