Social Phobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder: Comorbidity and Clinical-Diagnostic Problems (Analytical Review)

Abstract

When assessing social phobia and avoidant personality disorder, a number of researchers consider their comorbidity in the continuum of social anxiety and avoidance within a single mental disorder. Based on the analysis and generalization of research data, it is shown that social phobia and avoidant personality disorder have close clinical and pathogenetic links, but very differentiated depending on the contribution of biological, socio-psychological and environmental factors to the formation of pathology. At the present stage of studying the problem, it is premature to talk about the existence of a single mental disorder or its alternative conceptualization. The directions for further study of comorbid relationships associated with the search for markers of differences between avoidant personality disorder and social phobia in the form of biological, personality, cognitive and behavioral (avoidant behavior) parameters are proposed. The study of these markers in dynamics, as well as in the context of the influence of environmental and sociocultural factors, seems promising. The data obtained in the course of further research will be in demand in therapeutic practice.

Keywords

• social phobia
• social-anxiety disorder
• avoidant personality disorder
• comorbidity