Anxiety
Treatments
ANXIETY
Anxiety plays an adaptive role in our lives and is a useful response in certain situations, as it prepares us to face danger. However, when anxiety occurs in situations that are not dangerous, is disproportionate and significantly interferes with our day to day, we can say that we are facing an anxiety disorder.
The main anxiety disorders are:
Generalized anxiety disorder
It is a chronic and excessive worry about a wide range of issues in daily life that the person is unable to control. Thus, this concern is reflected in the following symptoms: restlessness or impatience fatigue easy difficulty concentrating or having a blank mind irritability muscle tension sleep disturbances.
Panic disorder
The essential manifestation are recurrent attacks of severe anxiety or intense fear (panic), which are not limited to any particular situation and are therefore unpredictable. The dominant symptoms include a sudden onset of palpitations, chest pain, a feeling of suffocation, dizziness, and feelings of unreality. In some of the attacks there has been a continuous concern about other panic attacks or their consequences (fear of dying, losing control or going crazy, for example).
Agorafobia
Appearance of anxiety when being in places or situations where escape may be difficult (or embarrassing) or where, in the case of an unexpected crisis of anxiety or more or less related to a situation, or symptoms similar to anxiety, it may not help be available. Agoraphobic fears are usually related to a set of characteristic situations, including being alone outside the home; mingling with people or queuing; go over a bridge, or travel by bus, train, or car.
Social phobia
Sharp and persistent fear of one or more social situations or public performances in which the subject is exposed to people they do not know The individual fears acting in a way (or showing symptoms of anxiety) that is humiliating or embarrassing. It is the fear of being examined by other people, which leads to avoiding situations of social encounter.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
The essential feature of this disorder is the presence of recurrent obsessive thoughts or compulsive acts. Obsessive thoughts are ideas, images, or impulses that repeatedly break into a person's mind. They are almost always annoying, so an unsuccessful attempt is made to resist them. Compulsive acts or rituals are behaviors that are repeated over and over again. These are not by themselves pleasant, nor are they helpful. Thus, its function is to prevent some objectively improbable event, which usually refers to receiving some harm from someone or harming someone.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
It arises when the person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. Typical characteristics include repeated episodes of re-experiencing the trauma in the form of upsetting flashbacks, even dreams or nightmares, and the person's efforts to avoid reliving it. Because of this, the person avoids or tries to avoid situations that remind him of the traumatic event. People with this disorder may also experience symptoms such as difficulty falling asleep, outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, and an exaggerated startle reaction.
Specific phobias
Sharp and persistent fear that is excessive or irrational, triggered by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (eg, flying, cliffs, animals, giving injections, sight of blood). Being in this situation, it almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response, which can take the form of a crisis of situational anxiety or more or less related to a certain situation. Once the situation is over, the person recognizes that this fear is excessive or irrational.
Separation anxiety disorder
This disorder consists of excessive fear or anxiety related to separation from the attachment figure. This supposes discomfort knowing that you have to separate from that person, having nightmares about the subject, being very worried that something bad may happen to them, as well as thinking that they may kidnap you. In addition, the person feels reluctance to leave the house, to be alone and to sleep in another house. On the other hand, physiological symptoms such as headache, nausea, vomiting, etc. can occur.
Selective mutism
It consists of the failure to speak in social situations in which he is expected to do so, although he usually speaks in other situations. Thus, the deficit is not due to a communication disorder or lack of command of the language being spoken. All this interferes with the life of the person, both at school, work, and social.
Adaptive disorder
It is defined as an emotional distress resulting from a significant biographical change (separation from parents, emigration ...) or a stressful life event. The main symptoms are: depressed mood, anxiety, worry (or a mixture of all of them); feeling of inability to face problems, to plan for the future or to be able to continue in the present situation and a certain degree of deterioration in how the daily routine is carried out. In children, regressive phenomena such as returning to nocturnal enuresis, using childish language, or thumb sucking are often part of the symptomatic courtship.
Other Anxiety Disorders
There are other less common but equally treatable anxiety disorders. They can occur together with depressive and obsessive symptoms among others.
Causes:
There are several factors that influence the appearance of anxiety disorders. These are: Biological: Neurotransmitters: elevated norepinephrine and hypersensitivity of serotonin receptors. Genetics: studies indicate some basis of family transmission. Psychological: Perception that something is dangerous when it is not. Constant anticipation of negative consequences of actions. Expectations of uncontrollability.
Course and prognosis:
Generalized anxiety is one of the mental disorders that occurs in a greater number of people. The most common anxiety disorder is specific phobia (between 10 and 11%). The chronicity of these disorders varies from person to person, with generalized anxiety disorder being one of the most difficult disorders to treat. At Instituto Carbonell, we evaluate and treat all types of anxiety disorders, in an interdisciplinary way, adapting to the individual characteristics and needs of each patient.
