Leonardo Dominguez Ortega and Darby Saxbe
February 2020: You are an average teenager waking up for school. You get to the first period and talk to your teammates. Your chemistry is hard to handle, but you’ll figure it out together. Lunch rolls around and you head out to your group of friends. You’re all sitting shoulder to shoulder with trays of recently microwaved pizza in front of you as you walk through a funny Instagram video. You show up after lunch during Spanish class. You fiddle with the tag on your sweater to deal with your nerves, but as your presentation on Frida Kahlo comes to an end, you feel a weight lift off. A few hours later, the soccer game starts and you meet some kids from the opposite school. They also take the SAT soon and you will understand how annoying that is. You all sit together and enjoy the game until your parents accept you. You get into the car and think about your day. You have a lot social anxietyand your therapist encouraged you to put yourself in difficult situations. Even though the day was hard, you feel much better.
April 2020: Class starts at 8 and you wake up at 7:58, while still in your bed, you reach for your Chromebook. You enter Zoom – camera and microphone off, of course. Day cruises by. You play video games after “school” and before you know it, it’s 1 am. You haven’t seen anyone and done very little with your day. In COVID-19 The pandemic has taken over your and your social schedule anxiety returned How do you get back to normal?
Adolescence It is a very difficult time. Big life transitions, such as starting high school and puberty, can occur stress and makes it difficult to regulate. Social anxiety disorder (SAD), severe fear about the judgments of others during social interactions (Aderka et al., 2013) is a common adolescent problem, with 17% of young people worldwide dealing with this disorder (Salari et al., 2024). Despite these challenges, social relationships play an important role in adolescent development and can help alleviate these challenges (Butler et al., 2022). For this reason, exposure to social interactions is a key aspect of SAD treatment. This aspect of treatment takes advantage of the school environment: abundant opportunities for social interaction.
In the spring of 2020, school schedules were turned upside down. Governments quickly imposed lockdowns, social distancing measures and school closures to stop the spread of COVID-19. Overnight, the daily school-time chats and after-school socials involved staring at black boxes on the computer screen for hours.
On the surface, this could be a winning lottery ticket for teens with SAD. You think you need to meet the requirements to talk to your peers or teachers sports the incident, or the passage of these concerns in the hallway. In fact, some researchers have suggested that the pandemic may have been a positive term for those struggling with social interactions (Kindred & Bates, 2023). However, a closer look reveals that these changes may make SAD more difficult to treat in the long term.
The impact of COVID-19 on the treatment of social anxiety disorder
We know that we can effectively treat social anxiety using therapies such as social, interpersonal skills training. psychotherapyand medicine. Among these treatments, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is particularly effective – especially exposure to uncomfortable situations (Heimber & Magee, 2014; Radtke et al., 2020).
In a therapy setting, clients are encouraged to act out hypothetical scenarios that are consistent with their fears and concerns. They learn that although these moments are sad, they are not catastrophic – they learn to cope with them. Therapy then extends to homework assignments outside of therapy to promote their interests in real life outside of therapy. Clients take on the role of “scientist” gathering information to dispel their fears and concerns. If a teenager has difficulty communicating with others, they will be assigned homework to start and maintain conversations with new peers. If they fight with them attentionmake them raise their hands more often in class. In general, the goal is to make mistakes. The goal is for clients to integrate this information into their thinking patterns and support their fears and concerns with real-world scenarios with experience.
School is a useful environment for these homework assignments because it promotes social interaction and fosters friendships. Students meet their peers in a variety of places, from riding the bus to school, sitting in class, joining clubs or sports. If you have SAD and are receiving treatment during the pandemic, you are the first to know that this treatment process has been made very difficult by Zoom. Instead of being able to push yourself to interact with your peers, the exposure exercises were reduced to discussions with the clinician on the screen.
Why is this important and what is next?
So what does it all mean? SAD can make it difficult for young people to take advantage of this exciting time in their lives. We have very effective treatments to help with this problem, but their magic dust has been countered by the challenges of COVID-19. Instead of enjoying the full effect of the treatment, progress was halted or canceled altogether.
As a result, if you’ve been receiving treatment for SAD during the pandemic and feel like it’s not helping as much as you’d like, don’t worry: you haven’t done anything wrong. On the contrary, a key component of the dish, which is the cure, was missing. If your social anxiety is still rearing its ugly head, treatment in a better setting outside of the pandemic may be just what you’re looking for. Accept the exposure caused by the lack of social distancing and treat yourself to another stroke.
To find a therapist, please visit List of current psychological therapies.
