Media Review: Social Phobia on YouTube

I’ve broadened out the podcast reviews to encompass media which include film and video particularly as there is an ever increasing amount of material on YouTube.

The topic I chose for this review is social anxiety and social phobia (or social anxiety disorder) on YouTube. I found quite a large number of videos on this topic but have just reviewed a small proportion of them here. The majority relate to social phobia and one to social anxiety and they are divided into education and experiential videos.

In this video, the lecturer gives a talk on social phobia with a case study and he also goes over some of the diagnostic criteria. He also goes over some of the treatments and is in two parts which in total runs to about 13 minutes. This cartoon features what sounded to me like adolescent narrators who explain social phobia with references to the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. The video also explains how it affects people and includes references to pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy runing to five and a half minutes. I wasn’t sure of the age of the target audience but the video is well presented and covers a lot of the basic information accessibly. This video is effectively a small number of slides displayed sequentially with background music. The slides contain some details about social phobia but I didn’t find them to be as informative as some of the other videos but this would be useful to someone who wants a rapid overview.

From the experiential perspective, there were a number of videos communicating the inner experience of social phobia. The diagnosis of social phobia is taken in good faith and the people in the videos explain what this means to them experientially. The videos can be very involved and would be orientated towards an adult audience. Certainly in putting together videos of their experiences these people are very courageous and I wondered how the nature of audience affected the social anxiety. For instance if the audience will view the video many years after it was made, how does this interact with the social anxiety? In this video, the quietangel123 has put together images and music to convey the experience of being alone although the term social anxiety disroder is used in the title. AlanJones78 narrates with a background picture about his experience of social anxiety over five minutes explaining the thoughts and feelings he has. Nayomee77 presents two videos (here and here)  on her experiences of social phobia and the difficulties she has had in trying to cope with this. These videos have generated a lot of viewings and comments.

These are just a few of the videos that I came across on YouTube but there is already quite a lot of material showing how differently people can communicate the theoretical aspects of social phobia and even how the experiences can be communicated by those suffering with social anxiety and just how much of an effect this can have on a person’s life. Communities can build up in the YouTube forum and it would be interesting to know if this is beneficial through text comments and video responses.

 

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Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

Podcast Review:A Talk by Dr Devdutt Pattanaik

On a visit to Sandeep Gautam’s Mousetrap blog I came across this video and Gautam takes the opportunity to further discuss the contrasting Eastern and Western values in terms of illnesses such as psychosis. The video that Gautam refers to consists of a presentation by Dr Devdutt Pattanaik who describes himself as a medical doctor who has gone on to advise businesses on ideas, mythology and beliefs. I found this video interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly Pattanik gives an extraordinairy performance – a showcase for just how good a presentation can be. He weaves a narrative into his presentation with the meeting of Eastern and Western cultures. He uses some slides, but these really fade into the background because he carries the presentation through his charismatic performance. It is almost as though he is negotiating with the audience at each point. Secondly the content of the presentation is very interesting also in that he contrasts Eastern and Western lifestyle approaches. It can be argued that there is no single Western or Eastern approach, making contrasts difficult. Nevertheless Pattanaik considers beliefs about the many idealised approaches in Eastern culture, the recognition of the sheer magnitude of possibilities that are available in life and the person’s place in the greater scheme of things with a western approach which is closely aligned to success, goal setting and a single life in which to achieve all that is necessary. Pattaniak suggests that where Eastern and Western civilisations meet and these differences are not understood it will result in difficulties. Pattanaik focuses on the example of western businesses that need to adjust when operating in the East. However if such arguments are valid they have applications elsewhere. For instance with migration from East to West or West to East, families will have to adapt to these new values and this process of adaptation can influence health which is an area that has been studied extensively e.g. in transcultural psychiatry. The implication that health can be influenced indirectly by cultural mythology is on reflection quite profound. The adjustments that families make when moving between civilisations has been explored in literature and film also. Nevertheless even when there are such differences there are also many similarities. Education is assessed in both the East and West and the outcome of this goal-orientated process influences lives in both cultures. From an evolutionary perspective, competition features in a number of ways and this can itself be considered a goal-orientated process which is found in both Western and Eastern cultures whether implicit or explicit in various settings. Pattanaik’s presentation is a useful starting point for discussing cultural differences.

 

 

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

TAWOP Channel

You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link

Responses

If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.