Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness

272 Pages·2008·1.88 MB·English

by  Lane, Christopher

SHYNESS

SHYNESS
How Normal Behavior
Became a Sickness
Christopher Lane
Yale University Press
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund established
by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College.
The information and suggestions contained in this book are not intended to replace the
services of your physician or caregiver.
The author has attempted to make this book as accurate and up to date as possible, but
it may nevertheless contain omissions or material that is out of date at the time you read it.
Neither the author nor the publisher has any legal responsibilities or liability for errors,
omissions, out-of-date material, or the reader’s application of the medical information or
advice contained in this book.
Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Lane. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that
copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except
by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Set in Galliard type by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York.
ISBN: 978-0-300-12446-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007925003
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Might there be a brand of “shyness” serious enough to warrant
medical attention? There is. It is “social phobia.”
—Murray B. Stein, The Lancet(April 1996)

CONTENTS
Introduction: Bashful No More 1
1 The Hundred Years’ War over Anxiety 11
2 The Diagnostic Battles: Emotions Become Pathologies 39
3 A Decisive Victory: Shyness Becomes an Illness 71
4 Direct to Consumer: Now Sell the Disease! 104
5 Rebound Syndrome: When Drug Treatments Fail 139
6 A Backlash Forms: Prozac Nation Rebels 169
7 Fear of Others in an Anxious Age 194
Notes 213
Acknowledgments 249
Index 253

INTRODUCTION:
BASHFUL NO MORE
When my mother was six years old, she often pretended she was a
horse. Painfully shy, she preferred galloping around on “four” legs to the
ordeal of talking to strangers on two. The Germans were bombing Lon-
don and southern England at the time, a source of terror for many chil-
dren, and my grandparents—concerned about her safety—heightened her
anxiety by sending her off to boarding school. Once there, my mother
would cavort outside for hours. When that wasn’t feasible, she withdrew
to a practice room and played the piano with quiet intensity.
No one found her especially odd or recommended medication for her
quirky behavior. My grandparents shrugged off her equestrian impressions
as the charming eccentricity of a girl blessed with a vivid imagination, and
waited patiently for her to change. Years later, still playing the piano and
still unconventional, she became a renowned music therapist and lecturer
at London’s Nordoff-Robins Center for children with learning difficulties.
In my mother’s generation, shy people were seen as introverted and per-
haps a bit awkward, but never mentally ill. Adults admired their bashful-
ness, associating it with bookishness, reserve, and a yen for solitude. But
shyness isn’t just shyness any more. It’s a disease. It has a variety of over-
wrought names, including “social anxiety” and “avoidant personality dis-
order,” afflictions said to trouble millions (almost one person in five, ac-
cording to some estimates).1 And since the early 1990s, when the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration agreed that powerful psychotropic drugs
were suitable ways of treating these conditions, countless Americans and
1