Treating Anxiety

* Re “Pills for What Ails You Socially,” Opinion, July 23: While I agree generally with Scott Gottlieb’s assertion that drug companies are inappropriately advertising medication as the solution to social ills and consequently medicalizing symptoms that are normal traits, I disagree with his use of social anxiety/social phobia as an example of this. Perhaps he is confusing “shyness” with “social anxiety”; social anxiety/phobia can be a severe and disabling anxiety disorder.

Medication alone is not the answer. Anxiety symptoms are very real and physical, yet there is often no medical basis for them; they are not an illness or disease, as drug companies want you to believe. Treating psychological problems in a purely medical way is the least effective form of help, yet currently the most frequently used. It’s as ineffective as treating cancer with psychological counseling only.

EVELYN GOODMAN, Psy.D.

Culver City