Shyness and Psychology

In this text, we are going to talk about an essential question that should be the beginning of all our questioning and research about what shyness is and about the objective of the thousands of people who ask me in the Ask a Psychologist section: How to overcome shyness?

The essential question, then, is: is shyness a psychological type? Is shyness a personality type?

Behind this question there is another one, in fact: is the shy person always like this? Was and will always be shy?

The answer to all these questions is NO!

Shyness is not a psychological type, it is not a personality type, the shy person was not always shy, is not always shy and will not always be shy.

It is important to forget these bad words at this moment, bad words like always and never (you can never change the situation of shyness).

In other words, the person who considers himself shy is not always shy. It presents a behavior – and a feeling of shyness – at some times, in some contexts, for some people.

And here we have to make a distinction, mark a difference between two concepts: The difference between shyness and introversion.

The concept of introversion was created by the Swiss psychologist CG Jung, who I study in my PhD.

The psyche, or our soul, has two possible attitudes since early childhood. The soul can turn more towards the outer world or more towards the inner world. With this, two types of attitude or personality are created: the introverted type and the extroverted type.

If a person is introverted most of the time, other times he will be extroverted.

If a person is extroverted most of the time, other times he will be introverted.

The difference between shyness and introversion is that introversion is a psychic attitude that returns, that sheds (version), the psyche into itself. Instead of consciousness looking outward to the environment and other people, the psyche prefers to know itself, to know its own world of inner experiences.

Introversion is often confused with shyness, due to the fact that both lack extroversion. However, the two are not the same thing.

An extrovert often turns to the things of the world, to external things. But even in this way, an extrovert can be shy.

That is, a person who is open to contact and communication with most people can, at certain times, be shy.

What I want to make clear here is that shyness is not something immutable and it is not a personality type like introversion and extroversion.

If, I repeat, a very extroverted person can have moments of shyness, an introverted person can too.

So what’s the difference between shyness and introversion?

The difference is very simple. And to know the difference, we must finally define shyness:

The word shyness comes from the Latin word timeō, a verb that meant fear. There is a Greek word, which is also often related – θυμός (thumos), which meant heart, desire, soul, life.

θυμός, Thumus, in Greek, also gives rise to the thymus, a gland located close to the heart and which is very important for the immune system, for the body’s defense.

The origin, therefore, of the word shyness would be twofold. Fear and the thymus gland.

In other words, shyness would be fear.

On the other hand, it could have an origin associated with a gland, located close to the heart, and which is very interesting… because it decreases in size and loses its function after childhood…

But the definition of shyness should be as follows:

The person is always shy with other people. Sure! No one is shy in their own room.

Shyness is:

– a feeling of discomfort or discomfort around one or more people;

– the difficulty of speaking or even silence around one or more people;

– difficulty looking into the eyes of people around you (in the same environment);

I made a point of describing the gaze issue, as it happens that people are called shy simply because they look lower than the eyes of the people they are talking to.

We will continue to talk about shyness in other texts. Wait.

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