Scott Susie
Department of Sociology, University of Sussex, UK.
Sociol Health Illn. 2006 Mar;28(2):133-53. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2006.00485.x.
Shyness has become an 'unhealthy' state of mind for individuals living in contemporary Western societies. Insofar as its behavioural 'symptoms' imply a failure to achieve certain cultural values, such as assertiveness, self-expression and loquacious vocality, shyness is increasingly defined as a problem for which people can, and should, be treated. This paper first critically discusses the idea that we are witnessing a new 'cultural epidemic' of shyness, as evidenced by increasing rates of diagnosis for Social Phobia, Social Anxiety Disorder and Avoidant Personality Disorder. It then examines three main dimensions of the medicalisation of shyness: biomedical and genetic approaches, the therapeutic interventions of cognitive-behaviour therapy and 'shyness clinics', and the disciplinary regimes imposed by self-help books and websites. Within a cultural climate of pervasive anxiety and privatised risk, the medicalisation of shyness suggests a powerful new way of defining and managing certain kinds of deviant identities, but we can also find some evidence of resistance to this approach.
对于生活在当代西方社会的个体而言，羞怯已成为一种“不健康”的心理状态。就其行为“症状”意味着未能实现某些文化价值观而言，比如自信、自我表达和健谈，羞怯越来越被定义为一个人们能够且应该接受治疗的问题。本文首先批判性地讨论了这样一种观点，即我们正在目睹一场新的羞怯“文化流行病”，社交恐惧症、社交焦虑症和回避型人格障碍的诊断率上升就是证据。接着，本文考察了羞怯医学化的三个主要方面：生物医学和基因方法、认知行为疗法及“羞怯诊所”的治疗干预，以及自助书籍和网站所施加的规训机制。在普遍焦虑和个体化风险的文化氛围中，羞怯的医学化暗示了一种界定和管理某些类型越轨身份的强大新方式，但我们也能找到一些抵制这种方法的证据。
