Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics

Feeling anxious is a normal emotional response. Whether it's just before an exam, due to a conflict at work, or just before making an important decision, anxious symptoms can manifest. In fact, in uncertain or stressful situations it is normal to experience this phenomenon.

However, when anxiety affects a person in a way that causes abnormal functioning in some areas of your life (relationships with others, school, work, etc.), then we are talking about a anxiety disorder.

In this article we will see what they are the different types of anxiety disorders, its characteristics and symptoms.

• Related article: "The 16 most common mental disorders"

Characteristics of anxiety disorder

Individuals may experience anxiety differently, and while some experience acute attacks panicked by their catastrophic thoughts, others experience the anxious symptoms in situations social.

Also, there are people who have excessive, irrational and persistent worry and anxiety. Anxiety disorders cause a lot of suffering to the person who suffers them

, and it is one of the most frequent reasons for consultation in psychological therapy.

Anxiety is a condition that causes both physical and psychological symptoms, and affects millions of people around the world.

On the other hand, the symptoms of this pathology are classified into three groups:

• Behavioral: Producing changes in our way of acting.
• Cognitive: the way of thinking or how we perceive the environment are also affected by anxiety.
• Physiological: It provokes a series of physiological responses, such as palpitation, dry mouth, etc.

Types of anxiety and their characteristics

Anxiety is a set of psychological and physiological elements that have their reason for being in biological evolution.

And it is that in the vast majority of cases anxiety is a useful coping mechanism to maximize our chances of survival: allows us to react in time to the first signs that something is wrong in our environment, or that opportunities are appearing that we should not miss.

Thus, anxiety is not synonymous with psychological disorder. However, like everything in nature, an element that supposes evolutionary advantages in many cases, can give rise to significant problems under certain circumstances, as with organs that can develop diseases.

Therefore, the first distinction that we must consider to understand the types of anxiety is the following: pathological anxiety and non-pathological anxiety. Within the first category we find what is known as anxiety disorders, a set of psychological disorders based on distress and anxiety.

Since people experience anxiety disorders in different ways, psychologists and psychiatrists have created categories for each of the different types of anxiety. The most important are the following.

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Panic disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
• Social phobia
• Agoraphobia
• Specific phobia

In the following lines we will delve into each of these disorders and explain their characteristics.

1. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD is a fairly common anxiety disorder. It is characterized because the person who suffers it shows behaviors that may seem strange, something that happens to him in a wide variety of situations and without the need for a clear trigger for the discomfort that they experience. That is, it is associated with diffuse anxiety, which tends to persist over time regardless of what happens around the person.

In some cases, anxious thoughts can be beneficial to us, keeping us alert. For example, there is nothing wrong with checking that the door of our house is closed before going to bed, thus we make sure that no one robs us. The problem arises when, after having checked the doors and windows, we repeat the same behavior over and over again, because we think that if we don't do it, something bad is going to happen to us.

This disorder is characterized by obsessive behaviors and compulsive. Obsessions refer to intrusive thoughts, ideas or images that cause worry and anxiety and that appear over and over again in the mind. Compulsions are actions taken to reduce the anxiety caused by obsessions.

For example, an obsession may be the following thought: "if we don't turn the room switch on and off ten times in a row we are going to die." Compulsion, on the other hand, is the act of turning the lights on and off. Failure to perform compulsions causes great discomfort and a strong feeling of anxiety.

It must be taken into account that, despite the fact that OCD has been classified many times within the category of anxiety disorders, according to other criteria, are rather associated with impulse control disorders. In fact, it has been seen that those who present this psychological alteration tend to obtain higher scores in impulsivity, which which indicates that his problem is not so much the tendency to seek perfectionism, but rather the not being able to avoid performing the compulsions

2. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD occurs when an individual suffers a traumatic situation that has caused a strong emotional and stressful impact.. People with PTSD continually relive the event that triggered the disorder, for example, being the victim of rape or participating in a war.

If the emotional impact is very great, the discomfort of people can last for years, and some people need psychological support because they are unable to overcome it on their own.

In part, this type of anxiety disorder is based on emotional memory: the memories related to an experience are "stored" in the brain in a dysfunctional way, so that these Images appear unexpectedly in the consciousness of the person with relative frequency, causing him great discomfort.

Symptoms include:

• Relive the trauma- They can relive the trauma constantly, for example, with nightmares.
• Respond to stressors: the person can relive the event in the presence of stressors similar to the situation or scene of the event. For example, hearing loud noises or recognizing a similar smell.
• Recurrent anxiety: the individual experiences anxiety on a regular basis.
• Emotional problems: the person also experiences emotional problems, for example, disinterest in relationships with others.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that in some explanatory models of mental health problems, there are different types of trauma, and in some of them dissociation is the predominant aspect, and not so much anxiety.

3. Panic disorder

Panic disorder is characterized by the person suffering from it having feelings that they are going to die imminently and that they are short of breath.. They are sensations that the person perceives as very real despite being aware that they are not the product of reason, which causes intense fear and, consequently, great discomfort.

In severe cases, the patient even has to be hospitalized. It can turn out to be one of the most disabling anxiety disorders.

The symptoms are highly debilitating and include:

• Unexpected and repeated panic attacks.
• Once the first panic attack has occurred, the person thinks that another will occur, at least for a month.
• Concern about panic attack symptoms. For example, thinking that it is an undiagnosed medical illness or that they are going to have a heart attack.
• Changes in your usual behavior, such as avoiding sports because of the symptoms that the person experiences.
• The attacks usually last half an hour, and the peak occurs after approximately 10 minutes.
• Its frequency can vary, from several times a day to once every few years.

4. Generalized anxiety disorder

Many people experience anxiety at certain specific moments: when they go to play a game of important basketball, before a test or when they are meeting for the first time with a girl who loves. However, individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) feel worried or anxious most of the time, for several months, and not just in situations that can cause stress.

In GAD, the concerns are persistent (they occur half the days for at least six months), intense, irrational and interfere with the normal functioning of some area of ​​the person's life affected. For example, work, friends or family.

In this way, the anguish linked to Generalized Anxiety Disorder is based on a diffuse feeling of discomfort, which does not arise in a specific context or with a specific stimulus. Psychological therapy is essential to combat this psychological alteration, and as their way of expressing themselves is highly variable and changes Depending on the characteristics of each patient, having the personalized attention of a professional who follows up the case is very important; It is of little use to try to apply what has worked for others (something that happens in all psychological disorders in general, but which is especially true in this one).

5. Social phobia

It is common to think that shyness and social phobia are the same, but in reality they are not.. Social phobia is a serious disorder, and people who suffer from it feel so bad about situations They are unable to control their fear and anxiety, so they often avoid this type of situations.

Being shy about speaking in public is normal, but when that fear and anxiety interrupt the normal functioning of the individual's life, it becomes a severe problem. People with social phobia can avoid all kinds of social situations, for example, going to eat at a restaurant, because they live in great fear of being judged or observed.

Thus, this is one of the types of anxiety disorders that most affect personal relationships, something that not only generates a feeling of isolation and unwanted loneliness, but also has implications for the material living conditions of the person: having less access to others means having less support and assistance.

6. Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the irrational fear of not being able to count on the help of others in a moment of urgency. Therefore, it frequently occurs when the person is in public spaces and open places, such as parks or streets. But public spaces are not the root of the problem, but the possibility of having a panic attack and being unprotected in these places.

In other words, in this anxiety disorder the anticipation of crises plays a very important role, and exerts a "self-fulfilling prophecy" effect. This influence of catastrophic predictions on what can happen occurs in all anxiety disorders, but in this it has a leading role.

People with agoraphobia do not want to leave their homes and avoid traveling anywhere other than their home and office. On many occasions, people with agoraphobia also suffer from panic attacks or PTSD.

7. Specific phobias

Phobias are irrational fears of a specific stimulus, for example, a situation, an object, a place or a living being of a certain species. Therefore, when a person suffers from this disorder, they do everything possible to avoid that situation or object that causes anxiety and discomfort.

There are different types of phobias, for example, arachnophobia (phobia of spiders) or coulrophobia (fear of clowns). This is because these types of anxiety disorders take as many forms as different concepts. creates the human mind, and from these concepts phobias of certain natural phenomena or social. Some of them really curious; you can discover them in the article: "The 15 weirdest phobias that exist”.

How are these psychological disorders treated?

Mental health interventions applied to anxiety disorders are of two main types: those related to psychiatry and pharmacology, and those related to psychotherapy.

1. From psychiatry

Anxiolytics are the most used resources from psychiatry to help those who have developed anxiety disorders. These psychotropic drugs usually help control symptoms, but in most cases they do not put an end to these psychological disorders. On the other hand, its side effects can have very harmful consequences, so it is very It is important to always follow the doctor's instructions both when consuming them and when leaving your consumption.

2. From psychological therapy

From psychotherapy there are several methods and techniques that have been proven effective in overcoming anxiety disorders.

Among them, systematic desensitization and controlled exposure stand out., in which the patient is induced to a certain level of anxiety and at the same time is guided and trained to apply emotional management measures in real time. Sometimes, Virtual Reality is used to enhance its effects.

Bibliographic references:

• Abramowitz, J. S.; Jacoby, R. J. (2014). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in the DSM-5. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 21 (3): 221-235.
• American Psychiatric Association -APA- (2014). DSM-5. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Madrid: Panamericana.
• Balaban CD, Thayer JF (January – April 2001). Neurological bases for balance-anxiety links. J Anxiety Disord. 15 (1–2): 53 - 79.
• Capafons, J.I. (2001). Effective psychological treatments for specific phobias. Psicothema.
• Hamm, A.O. (2009). Specific phobias. The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 32 (3): pp. 577 - 591.
• Hofmann SG, Dibartolo PM (2010). Introduction: Toward an Understanding of Social Anxiety Disorder. Social Anxiety.
• Kalueff, A.V., Ishikawa, K., Griffith, A.J. (2008). Anxiety and otovestibular disorders: linking behavioral phenotypes in men and mice. Behav Brain Res. 186 (1): 1 - 11.
• McLaughlin, K.; Behar, E.; Borkovec, T. (2005). Family history of psychological problems in generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology 64 (7): 905-918.
• Paul, J.W.; Elizabeth, A.. Phelps, eds. (2009). The Human Amygdala. New York: The Guilford Press.