Mental health articles

Parental factors have been suggested as potentially important in producing social anxiety. In an early study, Parker found that social phobics perceived their parents as overprotective and low in emotional support compared to a nonanxious control group. Several studies have now replicated these results.
Further, in some research, social phobics report that their parents isolated them from social experiences, overemphasized the opinions of others, and deemphasized socializing with others as a family. Of course, the main problem with all of these studies is that they utilize retrospective self-report, and as such, it is impossible to know how much of the results are due to reporting (or recall) biases caused by the disorder. A few studies demonstrated similar findings in children with social fears, but data are still sparse.
More importantly, some observational research is now beginning to show that mothers of children with any anxiety disorders (including social phobia) show overintrusive behaviors in a laboratory situation compared with mothers of nonclinical children. Of course, determining the causality of any of these effects is extremely difficult.

Tags: family, phobia, social phobia