Anxiety is a physiological body response to a threat or a danger. When confronted with an immediate danger, anxiety triggers a series of biological adaptive survival strategies. In moderate amounts anxiety can actually be helpful, since it gives an immediate response to any real or perceived threats. When anxiety is excessive if measured against the existent threat, or persistent for a period of time longer than 6 months, we talk about anxiety disorder. Anxiety and its symptoms have a huge negative impact of the individual personal, work and social life. Genetic, biological and environmental factors intertwine and contribute to the development of this disorder.
Research shows that 1 in 5 people will be affected by an anxiety disorder during the course of his/her life: prevalence is higher among women, almost doubled. There are different kinds of anxiety disorders. Here are the most common:
- Separation anxiety: every situation which implies distancing (from a partner, from one’s home, from one’s parents or friends) may cause pathological anxiety;
- Specific phobia: fear or anxiety towards an object, an animal (fear of spiders: arachnophobia) or towards specific situations (fear of heights: acrophobia);
- Generalized anxiety disorder: a constant presence of anxiety symptoms not necessarily linked to a specific cause. Excessive persistent worry and/or an alert state;
- Social phobia/social anxiety: severe fear or anxiety in social situations in which the subject is exposed to public scrutiny;
- Panic disorder: it implies frequent panic attacks (short period of time during which the subject experiences general distress accompanied by sweating, vertigo, nausea and suffocating feelings) and excessive fear of future panic attacks;
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder: it is characterized by the presence of obsessions such as ideas, thought, intrusive images that are corresponded to compulsive behaviors;
- Post-traumatic-stress disorder: it develops following the exposure to a traumatic event which has seen involved death, death threats or any general threat to one’s physical health or others’ health. It implies a persistent alert state, avoidance of all triggers associated with the trauma responsible for the development of PTSD which the subject may relive during nightmares or through thoughts.
Anxiety is a physiological body response to a threat or a danger. When confronted with an immediate danger, anxiety triggers a series of biological adaptive survival strategies. In moderate amounts anxiety can actually be helpful, since it gives an immediate response to any real or perceived threats. When anxiety is excessive if measured against the existent threat, or persistent for a period of time longer than 6 months, we talk about anxiety disorder. Anxiety and its symptoms have a huge negative impact of the individual personal, work and social life. Genetic, biological and environmental factors intertwine and contribute to the development of this disorder.
Research shows that 1 in 5 people will be affected by an anxiety disorder during the course of his/her life: prevalence is higher among women, almost doubled. There are different kinds of anxiety disorders. Here are the most common:
- Separation anxiety: every situation which implies distancing (from a partner, from one’s home, from one’s parents or friends) may cause pathological anxiety;
- Specific phobia: fear or anxiety towards an object, an animal (fear of spiders: arachnophobia) or towards specific situations (fear of heights: acrophobia);
- Generalized anxiety disorder: a constant presence of anxiety symptoms not necessarily linked to a specific cause. Excessive persistent worry and/or an alert state;
- Social phobia/social anxiety: severe fear or anxiety in social situations in which the subject is exposed to public scrutiny;
- Panic disorder: it implies frequent panic attacks (short period of time during which the subject experiences general distress accompanied by sweating, vertigo, nausea and suffocating feelings) and excessive fear of future panic attacks;
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder: it is characterized by the presence of obsessions such as ideas, thought, intrusive images that are corresponded to compulsive behaviors;
- Post-traumatic-stress disorder: it develops following the exposure to a traumatic event which has seen involved death, death threats or any general threat to one’s physical health or others’ health. It implies a persistent alert state, avoidance of all triggers associated with the trauma responsible for the development of PTSD which the subject may relive during nightmares or through thoughts.
TREATMENT
Anxiety treatment includes both pharmaceutical therapy and psychotherapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy has proven to be one the most successful approach, and aims to remove the excessive fears and the controlling and/or avoidant behaviors which sustain anxiety disorders.
The stages of psychotherapy treatment are the following:
- Identify the controlling and avoidant behaviors;
- Exposure strategies: face the feared situation step by step, going from the least worrying to the most worrying;
- Remove all controlling behaviors;
- Cognitive restructuring: the thoughts which sustain the anxious symptomatology are challenged
Depression
Major depression disorder is a mood disorder which impairs both the emotional and the cognitive sphere of the affected subjects. The constant low mood and the loss of interest in daily activities are typical of depression. The social functioning, work life and relationships of the affected subject are also compromised.
Genetic, biological, psychological and social factors intertwine and trigger the development of this disorder. Depressive symptoms can hit anybody at any age.
The prevalence is thought to be almost double in women comparing to men; it usually hits most young people rather than older people and it is more present in higher income countries rather than in lower income countries.
SYMPTOMS
If, during a two week period, five or more of these symptoms are present, it is possible that depression has taken place:
- Depressed mood (sadness, feelings of hopelessness and emptiness)
- Loss of interest and gratification in daily activities (anhedonia)
- Psychomotor agitation or psychomotor inhibition
- Chronic fatigue and loss of energies
- Feeling worthless, or excessively guilty
- Tendency to isolation, solitude or sedentary lifestyle
- Less social and sentimental relationships
- Decreased ability to focus an maintain the focus
- Severe weight gain or weight loss
- Persistent suicidal thoughts or attempted suicides
Dysthymia, or persistent depression disorder, is similar to major depression disorder: its symptoms are less severe than in major depression, but it usually lasts longer than major depression. Dysthymia severely impairs one’s quality of life and one’s social functioning. In order to receive a diagnosis of dysthymia at least two of these symptoms must be present and persistent for a period of time of two years. Usually, dysthymia affected subjects tend to underestimate his/her own sadness, mistakenly believing it to be just a personality trait. If not adequately treated, dysthymia can lead to major depressive disorder.
TREATMENT
Psychotherapy has proven to be successful for the treatment of depression. In its most acute forms, it can be accompanied by a pharmaceutical therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps the individual to reveal and implement new thinking strategies and functional behaviors that limit the amount of negative thoughts which aggravate the illness in the long term. Specifically, two stages are of the outmost importance:
- Social skills training: aims to potentiate the individual’s relational skills and limit his/her tendency to isolation and sedentary lifestyle
- Working on increasing self-esteem: an increased self-esteem leads to decreased feelings of guilt and inferiority which are typical of this disorder.
Psychodynamic therapy may help the individual to gain more consciousness about his/her own automatic strategies that rule the disorder.
