Anxiety Disorders
Common anxiety disorders and common treatments ...
Anxiety disorders are the most common type of emotional disorders, affecting more than 40 million adult Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
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Because of their prevalence, and impact on individuals, families, and communities, these conditions are some of the most highly researched and studied among psychologists and other scientists. The good news is that more is known today about these conditions than at any other time in history. That means effective, research-based treatments exist to help millions manage the symptoms of these disorders. (see Anxiety Disorder Treatments.)
It also means less disability, less chronic pain and dysfunction, and ultimately, well lived, satisfying lives.
Six anxiety disorders
The following descriptions summarize the six most common anxiety disorders. It’s not unlikely for individuals to suffer with more than one anxiety disorder, and other mental health disorders, such as depression and substance abuse, at the same time.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Worry is a part of everyone’s life. Just ask a parent with a teen-aged driver, or a child worried about the school bully.
Yet many individuals with GAD spend their days with persistent, exaggerated worry, producing high amounts of tension that interfere in all areas of a person’s life. Worry prevents these individuals from relaxing or enjoying pleasurable events. Anxiety can accompany every part of the day, from waking up, to going to work, to driving home and making dinner.
Worries focus around anything, from finances, to natural disasters, to contracting possible diseases or illnesses.(See GAD.)
Panic disorder. Panic – in any form – is a scary experience. Whether it’s a community panicking from a natural disaster or investors panicking about a bad day on Wall Street, panic is not a human experience that anyone gets through easily. And when it happens on a personal level, within the thoughts of one individual, it’s a terrifying and paralyzing experience.
Many individuals report the sudden occurrence of a panic attack without any previous episodes of such attacks. Some have one attack and never another, others maybe two in an entire lifetime.
However, panic disorder develops when individuals begin having repeated panic attacks to the point where they start restricting their lives and activities, avoiding any experiences that could signal or trigger an attack. (See panic disorder.)
Altering one’s activities, relationships, careers or goals because of the fear of panic attacks results in a disabling, debilitating existence.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). All individuals have certain rituals they perform, such as double-checking the locks on their house or car when leaving them, or putting their keys in the same place every time they come home.
These are normal, everyday rituals. However, individuals with OCD repeat rituals over and over to the point where the rituals prevent them from completing other normal daily activities and functions.
Distressing thoughts – obsessions – keep playing over and over in an individual’s mind. Individuals use rituals – compulsions- to try and silence or control the anxiety produced by these thoughts. For example, someone afraid of getting sick from germs or bacteria will repeatedly wash their hands.
People with OCD often try to avoid situations or events that they associate with their obsessions. (See OCD.)
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Often associated with military men and women returning from combat with a range of emotional issues, PTSD can affect anyone who has experienced a traumatic event.
Experiencing rape, robberies, muggings, abuse, accidents, bombings, or natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, all represent traumatic circumstances that lead to PTSD.
PTSD symptoms include a short temper, recurring nightmares of the event, constant flashbacks, sleeplessness, and aggressive or violent behavior. Many individuals can’t work or go to school, lacking the ability to concentrate and focus. (See PTSD.)
Social Anxiety Disorder (also called social phobia). From time to time, we all feel self conscious around certain groups of people, causing us some anxiety or discomfort. However, those with social anxiety disorder always encounter a persistent, chronic fear of interacting socially.
In everyday situations, from sitting through a meeting at work to attending a school-sponsored event for a child, people with a social anxiety disorder feel as if they are being continuously watched and judged by others. They obsess over doing something embarrassing, and become agitated before arriving at the event, stay overly self-conscious while there, and obsess over their perceived behavior once they return home.
Those with social anxiety disorder realize they are unreasonably self-conscious and anxious, yet they can’t prevent these thoughts from overtaking them, causing excessive sweating, face reddening, and often the inability to talk coherently or fluently. (See social anxiety disorder.)
Specific phobias. Whenever people think of phobias, spiders some to mind. That is one of the most common phobias, but it usually doesn’t interfere with a person’s everyday functioning.
However, other phobias interfere with someone’s life. For instance, a fear of driving will keep those with this fear from driving to work, school, or the grocery store. Fear of escalators or elevators prevent individuals from taking a job in a skyscraper or tall building with offices located several stories above ground.
What differentiates a phobia disorder from a normal fear is the fact that it’s irrational. The person unable to work in a skyscraper might not have a problem flying in an airplane or climbing mountains. The phobia is specific to one particular object or situation. (See specific phobias.)
A career as a mental health counselor provides individuals with the opportunity to help those who struggle with anxiety disorders. A master’s degree is required to work as a mental health counselor, and most states require individuals to take a state licensing exam.
If you are interested in working in the field of Mental Health Counseling, request information from the schools offering degree programs in mental health counseling or a related counseling degree program.
Performance Anxiety
Though performance anxiety isn’t necessarily considered an anxiety disorder, a large number of individuals suffer with some form of performance anxiety at one time or another.
Take, for example, that oh-so-sensitive topic “sex.” Performance in the bedroom happens to be one of the most anxiety-provoking issues for most Americans. Anxiety linked to sex rates as high as anxiety over giving a speech – perhaps even higher.
However, it’s not just the level of anxiety produced over performance issues that interest researchers, but the areas in the brain linked to performance anxiety.
Sian Bellock, one of the world’s leading experts on the science behind the brain and performance, and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, writes on her blog that researchers at Columbia University used brain scans to identify a specific brain-performance link.
Bellock reports that the Columbia researchers found that simply anticipating the giving of a speech is enough to make anxiety levels skyrocket. Interestingly, the researchers discovered that the brain’s prefrontal cortex became increasingly activated the more individuals anticipated the upcoming speech. The higher the activity levels in the prefrontal cortex, the higher the anxiety.
On her blog, Bellock wrote that “the anticipation of an event, and specifically the anticipation of others judging you, is enough to up the pressure before you have even arrived at the performance stage. If the end result is a flubbed performance, then we have somewhat of a recursive cycle on our hands. You worry about how others will judge you, which may lead to poor performance, which leads to more worry the next time you are in a public speaking situation, and so on.”
Bellock goes on to say that performance anxieties resulting from concern over how you’ll be judged is not only relegated to speech giving. She states that anticipation and anxiety over an upcoming sexual tryst operates similarly to what happens before a speech.
Knowing how perseverating about your performance in the bedroom could negatively affect performance gives you clues about what not to do.
In other words, don’t perseverate. Although that sounds easy, we all know that for many, it’s almost impossible. So performance anxiety research aids researchers in developing cognitive-behavioral strategies to halt these intrusive – and performance altering - thoughts.