Goodbye shyness, hello avoidant-personality disorder. Shyness, once an accepted and even admired trait, has been hijacked and given the status of a syndrome. Some experts believe that half the population now “suffer” from it. But is it natural or a medical affliction? “Social phobia” was recognised as a diagnosis in 1980 and, since then, it has been joined in the textbooks by social-anxiety disorder and avoidant-personality disorder. For those deemed to be afflicted there is counselling available as well as self-help books, hypnotherapy and psychotherapy. And for severe cases, there are drugs — mainly antidepressants, but also beta-blockers and botulinum toxin (for the excess sweating caused by shyness). There are even half a dozen shyness clinics around the country.

But not everyone agrees that shyness is a medical affliction. A conference next week of academics and health professionals in Newcastle, New South Wales, will debate the rise of “disease-mongering”. Some delegates will argue that defining natural conditions as diseases is merely a way for pharmaceutical companies to make money from the well. Health practitioners on the fringe of mainstream medicine also profit from this trend.

New research published by the University of Sussex is adding fuel to the debate. It suggests that we have gone too far with making shyness into a disorder. The researchers say it’s more about society being uneasy with those who don’t conform to the assertive, gregarious standards of the 21st century, than actually helping people. “Shyness has become an unhealthy state of mind for individuals living in contemporary Western societies,” says Dr Susie Scott, a sociologist at Sussex university who led the research. “The increasing medicalisation of shyness suggests that bashful modesty and reserve are no longer so acceptable and that to succeed we must be vocal, assertive and capable of gregariously participating in social life. As shyness becomes less socially acceptable, the shyest people are finding that their identities are being recast in biomedical terms and subjected to psychiatric treatment.”

Shy people are increasingly directed towards talking therapies, says Dr Scott, in which they are taught that their tendency towards quietness, passivity and withdrawal in social situations will not do and that it must be unlearnt.

“By producing a steady flow of re-socialised, conformist ‘gingerbread men’, therapeutic regimes perpetuate the idea that non-shyness is both a normal and a desirable state to be in and that shy people have an obligation to change,” says a report of the research, which will be appearing shortly in the journal Sociology of Health and Illness.

Why shyness is no longer acceptable is debatable. Dr Bernado Carducci, the head of the Shyness Research Institute, at the University of Indiana, says that the speed of modern life doesn’t allow shy people the time they need to warm up.

But many shy people are resisting the medicalisation and what American researchers call “cosmetic psychopharmacology”, the use of drugs to change natural traits. There are now a number of internet sites claiming that shyness is a positive, life-affirming experience. A website for AOL members (http://members.aol.com/cyberbettr/shyness.html) asserts that shyness is who you are. One contributor says: “I have noticed that there are programmes to treat shyness as if it were a disease. Shyness is not a disease. Shy people are probably the most kind-hearted people there are. Be thankful for it.”

It’s still not clear what causes shyness. The latest thinking suggests that it is an over-the-top response to fear of people thinking negatively about you. Research at Stanford University suggests that although there may be a genetic predisposition to shyness in some people, most shyness is triggered by early life experiences, such as insecurity, frequent criticism, a dominant sibling, family conflict and stress at school.

The first signs that shyness was no longer being seen as just a personality trait came three decades ago when Philip Zimbardo and Lynne Henderson, at Stanford University, found that 40 per cent of those who took part in a survey described themselves as chronically shy, with a further 15 per cent shy in some situations. They have now updated the prevalence rate to 50 per cent. “We may want to take note of increasing levels of shyness as a warning of a public health danger that appears to be heading toward epidemic proportions,” they said last year.

That growing sense of alarm about shyness has coincided with the increasing availability of drugs, the arrival of shyness clinics, a proliferation of talking therapy, and the reported discovery of culprit genes. All of which means that it has been increasingly regarded as a modifiable disease.

That’s certainly the approach at the London Shyness Centre, which uses neurolinguistic programming, psychotherapy and hypnotherapy to help shy people. A brochure for patients says: “Confident people with high self-esteem are able to pursue their dreams and goals, they feel worthy of their achievements. This can be you. Be everything you ever dreamt of being.”

But the key question in the great shyness debate is when — if ever — does a personality trait become a medical disorder? With most personality traits there is a case for treating people whose extreme behaviour is problematic to themselves and others. But the creeping medicalisation of a whole personality trait in its own right is another matter. Perhaps it is not surprising that the move towards increased medicalisation comes at a time when the proportion of the population estimated to be shy is tipped to rise. Home working, computers and internet-based activities have all led to less socialising and less practice for social skills.

“Shyness has got worse because of two revolutions,” says Dr Elizabeth Morris, the principal of the School of Emotional Literacy, a consultancy in Gloucestershire that advises schools on children’s emotional issues. “There has been a technological revolution, which means that children are interacting with screens rather than people, so neglecting to use social skills.