Anxiety Disorder and the Different Types

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Recommended: Chapter 6 anxiety disorders

Anxiety is the most common type of psychiatric diagnosis and brings together several disorders. These disorders cause fear, worry, panic and apprehension. Anxiety is different from fear to the extent that it is a reaction to an anticipated problem and fear is a reaction to a present problem or danger. The fear, worry, panic and apprehension caused by anxiety disorders are out of proportion. People suffering from an anxiety disorder have difficulties coping with certain situations in life; anxiety disorders disrupts their life. Some of them seek for psychological therapies.
Psychological therapies are interactions with professionals who help people coping with problems in their thoughts or behaviour. These therapies are based on past researches, thesis and theories. Is there strong evidence for the use of psychological therapy for treating anxiety disorders?
We need to understand more deeply anxiety disorders and therapies proposed to answer this question. First, this essay will review some of many types of anxiety disorders and their descriptions. Second, it will go through the types of psychological therapies. Finally, it will present the effectiveness of certain therapies for each type of anxiety disorders through past cases and studies.

Different types of anxiety disorders

Phobias
Phobia is a disproportionate and intense fear of a specific object or situation. There are numerous types of phobias. Here we will talk about some of the various phobias - such as claustrophobia and acrophobia, social phobia (or social anxiety disorder) and agoraphobia.
Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces and acrophobia the fear of heights.
Social phobia is the fear of social situations and agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces or crowd...

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...fficult to live a normal life.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder involves persistent, intrusive thoughts (obsession) and excessive routines (compulsion). People with OCD are often nervous and afraid about something, thus in response to that, they behave with rules they make up by themselves (familydoctor.com). Some of the obsessions a person can have are fear of germs, concern with order and symmetry, thinking about something all the time, need for constant reassurance. In response to this, they will repeatedly clean, check, arrange items, constantly count or seek for reassurance. They might also have these compulsions as prevention to any disasters that might occur. OCD can lead to depression and interferes with daily life.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a response to a past traumatic event.

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