Both are essential to alleviating anxiety symptoms associated with social anxiety disorder. For cases of generalized social anxiety, research indicates use of the anti-anxiety agents, and certain antidepressants in conjunction with CBT has proven most beneficial. Medication without CBT has proven to be only temporarily helpful. People completing CBT training report a high success ratio. In the NIMH longitudinal studies, people continued to report progress after the CBT behavioral group therapy was over.
Social anxiety is many times mixed up with panic disorder.
People with social anxiety realize that it is anxiety and fear that they are experiencing. They are not talking about the fear of having a medical problem. People with social anxiety tend not to go to hospital emergency rooms after an anxiety problem. People with panic disorder many times go to hospital emergency rooms, because they feel there is something medically and physically wrong with them. High rates of alcoholism and other substance abuse, family difficulties and problems, lack of personal relationships, and difficulty in obtaining and continuing with employment are among the everyday problems experienced by many people with social anxiety disorder.