The relationship between social anxiety, shyness and blushing

Abstract

The diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD) has seen substantial changes in the last 35 years from its first appearance in the DSM-III in 1980 up to the most recent ones in the DSM-5. Throughout all these changes, this disorder, previously called social phobia, is still considered one homogenous entity with only one specifier (“performance only”) introduced in the DSM-5 revision with specific fears or associated personality profiles not being considered relevant clinical markers to define SAD subtypes. However, our therapeutic experience suggested substantial particularities associated with the fear of blushing in patients with SAD. Some patients presenting this profile, historically called “erythrophobia”, seem to have a very specific type of social anxiety that does not include shyness and other characteristics of classical SAD. In a study conducted in a sample of 450 new consecutive outpatients seeking treatment for SAD, we compared 142 subjects with fear of blushing without other social fears, 97 subjects with fear of blushing with other associated social fears and 190 SAD subjects without fear of blushing. The group with pure fear of blushing presented a different profile when compared with the two other groups: later age of onset, less comorbidity, lower behavioral and temperamental inhibition, i.e. less shyness, and higher self-esteem. Furthermore, from a therapeutic point of view, some specific strategies such as the Task Concentration Training have shown to be particularly effective in fear of blushing. We will further argue the validity of a possible “fear of blushing” subtype of SAD.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.