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Anxiety, Mood/Affective and Dissociative/Somatoform Disorders
Anxiety disorders are the most common psychological disorders in the United States. There are many different types of anxiety disorders: that include panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress syndrome, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder. We’ve all experienced minor anxiety at some point in our lives - It’s the butterflies you feel in your stomach before a big date, the tense feeling you get when you know you’re in danger. This stress response, or fight/flight response is what helps us deal with everyday problems and situations. In healthy individuals, this response is provoked by a genuine threat or challenge to help deal with a particular situation. Anxiety, however, is excessive or inappropriate arousal characterized by feelings of apprehension, uncertainty, and fear. Although these feelings are often not attributable to a real threat, they can paralyze the individual into withdrawal and fear.
A phobia is a senseless, abnormal, specific fear. A person experiencing a phobia recognizes that no actual danger is imminent. Phobias may be so compelling as to force a person to alter his/her way of life in order to avoid circumstances that trigger the phobia. A phobia can be an animate object, an inanimate object, something living or it can be heights, darkness closed spaces, infections, water and open spaces. Phobia comes from the Greek word phobos, which means extreme fear or terror (www.phobiatx.com). Phobia sufferers can be of any age but it is believed that a phobia is only properly determined when a child is above the ages of five or six. Phobias make people behave in an irrational way.
Panic disorder is characterized by sudden attacks of severe anxiety that can incapacitate a person for about ten minutes. People with this condition have feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning....