Shyness and Love

Brian G. Gilmartin

doi:10.5771/9780761860600

Summary

Shyness & Love covers the only major study conducted to date on social anxiety disorder as it is manifested in informal, unstructured, male/female dating and courtship situations. It focuses on the causes—both biomedical as well as situational—of “love-shyness” and the consequences for those afflicted with it. Gilmartin also discusses promising treatment modalities and what schools and communities can do to prevent severe love-shyness from developing in the first place.

Shyness & Love examines the early family life as well as the peer group interactions of love-shy men. The book provides many statistical comparisons between the sampled love-shys and a comparison group of non-love-shy males of normal (but not superior) social self-confidence levels. These statistical comparisons allow for some informed speculations regarding the numerous interacting causes that underlie social phobia in informal, unstructured, heterosexual social situations. These statistical comparisons also provide the reader with some powerful suggestions regarding ways the American social structure (e.g., schools, family life, and communities) might be rearranged so that severe and intractable forms of love-shyness would never have an opportunity to develop in growing boys and teenagers in the first place.

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, it has been determined that as many as forty percent of men afflicted with love-shyness are simultaneously comorbid for Asperger’s Syndrome, also known as high-functioning autism. As many as half of all love-shy males are comorbid for the “male lesbian syndrome,” sometimes also referred to as the “passive, non-competitive male syndrome.” This second edition contains a new foreword that presents the latest findings in love-shyness research. It is more concise than the original Shyness & Love, yet retains the most significant chapters.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7618-6059-4
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7618-6060-0
Publisher: Hamilton Books, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 330
Product type: Book Titles

1. Table of Contents No access
2. List of Figures No access
3. Foreword No access
4. Acknowledgements No access
1. What Is Love-Shyness? No access
2. Love-Shyness is a Serious Problem No access
3. Viewing Someone to Love as a Cure-All No access
4. Normative Timetables of Self-Revelation No access
5. Why This Book? No access
6. Love-Shyness Costs Society Money No access
7. Plan of the Book No access
1. 1. The Phenomenon of Inborn Temperament No access
  2. The Work of Hans J. Eysenck No access
  3. Love-Shyness and the Inborn Anxiety Threshold No access
  4. The Importance of Social Stimulus Value No access
  5. The Work of Alexander Thomas No access
  6. The Jerome Kagan Work No access
  7. The Importance of Enzymes No access
  8. Some Related Work on Depression No access
  9. Biogenic Amines No access
  10. Anxiety Disease No access
  11. Dopamine No access
  12. Schizophrenia No access
  13. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders No access
  14. Conclusions No access
2. 1. The “Wish Bone Effect” No access
  2. The Sociological Perspective No access
  3. Every Group Needs a Deviant No access
  4. The “Apperceptive Mass” Concept No access
  5. Conclusions No access
1. 1. Who is “Love-Shy?” No access
  2. Why Study Men Only? No access
  3. The “Felt Deprivation” Concept No access
  4. The “Closet Heterosexual” Concept No access
  5. The “Male Lesbian” Concept No access
  6. The Prevalence of Love-Shyness No access
  7. How the Respondents Were Obtained No access
  8. The Importance of LOVE-Shyness No access
  9. Summary No access
2. 1. The East German Research No access
  2. My Own Findings No access
  3. Love-Shys as Quiet Babies No access
3. 1. Brothers and Sisters No access
  2. Quality of Parents’ Marriages No access
  3. Conclusions No access
4. 1. The Key Importance for Dating of Friendship Networks No access
  2. The Harlow Research No access
  3. The Polish Peasant No access
  4. Bullying No access
  5. Frailness of Body Build No access
  6. Masculine Toys No access
  7. The Baseball, Basketball and Football Syndrome No access
  8. Most People Know What Is in Their Best Interests No access
  9. Current Peer Group Interaction No access
5. 1. The Need for Beauty No access
  2. The Love-Shys’ Own Esthetic Attributes No access
  3. Beauty and the Older Love-Shys No access
  4. Cloning as a Future Option No access
  5. Accentuating the Positive No access
  6. Summary No access
1. 1. Behaviour Therapy Approaches No access
  2. The “Practice-Dating” Model No access
2. 1. The Nude Jacuzzi Experience No access
  2. Therapy Employing Sexual Surrogates No access
  3. Bibliotherapy No access
  4. Why Not Simply Use Commercial Dating Services? No access
  5. Self-Image Psychology as a Therapeutic Adjunct No access
  6. Self-Image Therapy No access
  7. Some Rejoinders for Traditional Psychotherapists No access
3. 1. Research on Gene Splicing No access
  2. Bullying No access
  3. The Cruellest Bully of All No access
  4. Some Recommendations Concerning Dogs No access
  5. Coeducational Dormitories: Their Limitations No access
  6. The “Harrad” Dormitory Option No access
  7. The Psychic Healing of Important Enzymes No access
  8. The Effect of Increasing Social Interaction No access
  9. The High School Curriculum No access
  10. Ballroom Dancing No access
  11. Religion No access
  12. Encounter Groups No access
  13. Might Fraternity Membership Help? No access
  14. Use of Autistic Adolescent Girls No access
4. 1. A Different Philosophy No access
  2. What Is Needed No access
  3. Judging a Person by Their Actions No access
  4. Elementary School Children No access
  5. Postscript No access