Anxiety Disorder Essay Research Paper Everybody has

Anxiety Disorder Essay, Research Paper Everybody has it. It is a natural part of life. Fortunately for most of us it isn t intense and persistent. It is anxiety. When speaking in front of a class, when peering down from a ledge, when waiting to play in the big game, anyone of us might feel anxious. But when this occasional uneasiness becomes overwhelming and an everyday occurrence, one might be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety. According to David Myers there are five different types of anxiety disorders. They are Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Phobias, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Panic

Disorders. Accurate diagnosis is important, since treatment varies from one disorder to another. Depending on the disorder, behavior therapy, drugs, or psychotherapy, alone or in appropriate combinations, can significantly relieve the distress and dysfunction for most people. The Surgeon General declares that the medications typically used to treat patients with anxiety disorders are benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and buspirone. The benzodiazepines are a large class of relatively safe and widely prescribed medications that have rapid and profound antianxiety and sedative-hypnotic effects. The four benzodiazepines currently widely prescribed for treatment of anxiety disorders are diazepam, lorazepam, clonazepam, and alprazolam. Benzodiazepines have the potential for producing

drug dependence or behavioral symptoms after discontinuation of use. Most antidepressant medications have substantial antianxiety and antipanic effects in addition to their antidepressant action. Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, and citalopram have emerged as the preferred types of antidepressants for treatment of anxiety disorders. When effective in treating anxiety, antidepressants should be maintained for at least four to six months, then tapered slowly to avoid discontinuation-emergent activation of anxiety symptoms. Unlike the benzodiazepines, buspirone is not habit forming and has no abuse potential. Buspirone takes four to six weeks to exert therapeutic effects, like antidepressants, and has little value for patients when taken on an as needed basis. Harold

Bernard, author of Psychology of Learning and Teaching, states that anxiety disorders are responsive to counseling and to a wide variety of psychotherapies. The hallmarks of cognitive-behavioral therapies are evaluating apparent cause and effect relationships between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as wells as implementing relatively straightforward strategies to lessen symptoms and reduce avoidance behavior. A critical element of therapy is to increase exposure to the stimuli or situations that provoke anxiety. Without such therapeutic assistance, the sufferer typically withdraws from anxiety-inducing situations, inadvertently reinforcing avoidant or escape behavior. The therapist provides reassurance that the feared situation is not deadly and introduces a plan to enhance

mastery. This plan may include approaching the feared situation in a graduated or stepwise hierarchy or teaching the patient to use responses that dampen anxiety, such as deep muscle relaxation or coping one fundamental principle is that prolonged exposure to a feared stimulus reliably decreases cognitive and physiologic symptoms of anxiety. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by six months or more of chronic, exaggerated worry and tension that is unfounded or much more severe than the normal anxiety most people experience. People with this disorder usually expect the worst; they worry excessively about money, health, family, or work, even when there are no signs of trouble. They are unable to relax and often suffer from insomnia. Many people with GAD also have