Laurie, la flâneuse

livnlern: Thank you for writing “Introvert Power”. I can identify with so many examples in your book. When you described how an introvert reacts when reaching the limit at a party, you could have been writing about me personally!

I’m just wondering…what is the difference between just being introverted and having something like social anxiety? I’m not quite clear on this.

Laurie: Great question, as the two are commonly confused. It helps if you remember that introversion is a healthy preference — something we are drawn to, as opposed to a deficit or form of avoidance.  Social anxiety, or social phobia, the label now used in clinical circles, is distressing to the individual and/or interferes with that person’s functioning.  Social phobias can occur in introverts as well as extroverts — the latter may crave more social interaction, but feel afraid to go there.

Now where it gets tricky is that healthy introverts do “avoid” certain social situations, but not because they are scared or worried about embarrassment or humiliation (characteristics of social phobia), but because we are BORED with certain social situations (e.g., parties). To further complicate things (sorry), introverts can become overstimulated in high-energy social situations (research shows that our brains have more going on at rest, so we get overloaded more easily), so if we don’t get a chance to pull back and think, we can become anxious and seem socially phobic.  

In looking at what is healthy and unhealthy, we need to look at both ends of the continuum. If it is unhealthy to avoid people, it is equally unhealthy to avoid solitude. The latter just doesn’t come with a diagnosis. 

Thanks for your question!