Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is not a rare psychiatric disorder, and the recent World Mental Health Japan Survey, Second (WMHJ2) reported the possibility that the twelve-month prevalence of SAD has increased from 0.7 to 2.3% over the last ten years. However, ten years have already passed since selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) were approved for the treatment of SAD in Japan, and not only laypersons but also mental health professionals still misunderstand SAD as public speech phobia. As a result, the boundary between normal shyness and SAD and threshold to start pharmacotherapy have been debated. Participants in most double-blind studies of SSRI were limited to those with a generalized subtype of SAD. While benzodiazepine led to a significantly more favorable response and symptom improvement and the effect size of benzodiazepine was larger than those of SSRI, it did not lead to a "cure" and is sometimes deleterious for atypical SAD patients. To sum up, a psychotherapeutic approach including cognitive behavioral therapy is suggested as first-line treatment for non-generalized SAD according to the NICE guidelines. On the other hand, patients with generalized SAD and secondary depression are still misunderstood (and under-recognized) as those with "treatment-resistant depression", and they suffer from severe impairment of the psycho-social function, including absences or withdrawal from working or schooling. They need more effective combination treatment of SSRI and cognitive behavioral therapy as generalized SAD patients.
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