Shyness and Social Isolation

Shyness and Social Isolation
Shy students are probably more common on campuses than their counselingcenter
representation might suggest, partly because their shyness makes them
hesitate to ask for help. In residence halls and classrooms, their needs may easily go unattended—they rarely cause problems that would attract professional
notice. Yet shyness can be an acutely uncomfortable and even disabling
problem. Shy students have trouble making friends and fi nding relationships,
are unable to participate in classroom discussions, and, at the extreme, may be
unable even to continue in college.

Some students may go all the way through college without making any
close friends, provided they can do well academically. A woman who survived
high school and her 4 years in college in this solitary way found herself on probation
in graduate school because she was unable to develop the rapport with
others necessary to succeed in group projects. Her psychotherapy required
delving deeply into her earliest years to fathom why she had related fairly well
within the family but not at all with outsiders.
Typically, shy students expect immediate rejection and need help fi nding
ways to be friendly despite their fear. When their social anxiety is fairly mild,
students can be helped with brief psychotherapy that emphasizes preparation
and rehearsal for social encounters, fi rst in the safety of the therapist’s offi ce and then, if needed, in group therapy with students having similar
issues. Th e therapist’s technique can employ cognitive-behavioral methods
to help undo unrealistic assumptions, and psychodrama-like role playing
to make it possible to try out heretofore “dangerous” friendly advances. Th e
experience of success and of nascent mastery provided by the initial role
playing usually becomes a powerful motivator for students to be yet more
daring.
In quite mild cases, students can be helped instantly with friendly support
and a simple suggestion or two. A beginning graduate student, newly arrived
from another state, where he had attended a very small college, succeeded
right away aft er he was encouraged to smile when he went through the cafeteria
line. On his fi rst try, he found himself invited to sit with other students and
began feeling at home in what had once seemed to him the “strange, impersonal”
setting of a huge university.
Typically, shy students are inordinately self-conscious, anticipating that
they will be found unacceptable and therefore will be embarrassed, whether
by the other person’s actual rejection of them or by their own evident awkwardness.
Either way, being fearfully self-preoccupied, they may be afraid to
take even a fi rst step socially. Th e best approach then is to fi nd out and build
on what the student can already do with some comfort and to encourage the
student to shift attention, if possible, from herself to the other person.

Students can also have problems relating comfortably for reasons other than shyness. Some are very uncomfortable with close human connections due to past intensely hurtful experiences, such as neglect or abuse. Th ey push other people away rather than get too close—and so end up isolated and lonely.

Th e therapist’s manner with these students must be carefully calibrated,
neither too warm so as to make the student feel uncomfortable, nor so distant
in reaction to the student’s coldness and seeming indiff erence as to be rejecting.
Goals with these students are necessarily modest in brief psychotherapy.
Ideally, one helps them to establish a degree of relatedness with others that
they can tolerate.
Some students are hungry for warm relationships but simply lack social
skills. Th ese are the students who may have histories of being teased or
shunned, whose eff orts at reaching out have consistently failed. Sometimes
they are intensely devoted to therapy because it provides their only experience
of acceptance and friendship. Such students can benefi t from simple
social suggestions, such as tips on how to listen to others, ask questions, and
even dress appropriately. Th ese students also may fi nd companionship despite
their awkwardness if they look in the right places. Th erapists can direct them
to activities, clubs, religious groups, and organizations that are likely to be
accepting. Students made miserable by being outcasts in their dormitories
may fi nd more welcoming environments elsewhere on or off campus.