Social anxiety and psychological abuse

Psychological abuse is receiving increased attention focusing on its severe effects for the individual and for society as a whole. Despite the considerable amount of research, there is a lack of information on the role that psychopathology may play in the etiology, development and maintenance of the abuse. As can be seen in other papers in this special issue, there is scattered information regarding the potential role of anxiety disorders, and particularly the social anxiety disorder. To fill this gap, this paper reviews the state-of-art including studies examining or including the relationship between social anxiety and topics such as sexual abuse, couple abuse, bullying and mobbing, also covered in this special issue. Overall, findings indicate a strong correlation between social anxiety and vulnerability to psychological abuse, particularly to bullying and mobbing.