Anxious Living

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.
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