The 4 layers of anxiety

Anxiety is a phenomenon that reveals itself in different psychological layers. Let's see what they are.

Anxiety is a normal emotional response to certain situations, and is an adaptive response to more or less stressful life events.It is an adaptive response to more or less stressful life events.

In other words, a certain degree of anxiety is desirable for the normal management of daily demands. It is a warning signal that warns of a danger and allows the person to take the necessary measures to face a possible threat; this makes the corresponding fight or flight response possible.

However, sometimes this level of alertness reaches an excessive extreme.

When anxiety becomes a problem

The anxiety is pathological when it happens of being an adaptive response to become a discomfort that causes a deterioration in the life of the person. with both physiological and cognitive symptomatology. This can be produced either by an excessive level of anxiety in the face of possible danger, or by an inappropriate anxiety response that appears in the face of non-existent dangers but which part of the brain structure interprets as threatening.

This pathological anxiety is related to present or recent events, but also to events in the past. but also with events experienced in the past that have generated beliefs, fears and defenses at a very deep level and that are affecting the present.

Types of associated disorders

According to the diagnostic manuals of mental disorders, the following are among the Anxiety Disorders:

1. Generalized Anxiety 2.

Excessive and persistent worry and persistent that is presented continuously.

2. Agoraphobia

Terror of being in open or crowded spaces.

3. Panic attacks

Episodes of high anxiety, with somatic symptomatology of great intensitythat appears without a justified reason.

4. Social phobia

Fear of social situations such as meetings, parties...

5. Specific phobia

High fear of specific situations or triggers (animals, objects, etc.). (animals, objects...)

6. Post-traumatic stress

Excessive fear generated by an event experienced as dangerous or that has generated a change in the way of interpreting life or the world around us.

The layers of anxiety

Depending on the type of disorder and on each person, the psychological treatment can varyalways taking into account the different layers of the internal structure in which anxiety is present and the work to be done in each of them.

1. External layer

It is necessary to take into account the current symptoms of the person, the situations and the current triggers of anxiety, providing tools to manage their difficulties and to manage anxiety symptoms.

2. Intermediate layer

It is necessary to to understand and work on the cognitive structure and how distortions are affecting and maintaining anxiety.

3. Internal layer

It is also essential to work with the parts of the personality that are generating these "alarms", parts that have been blocked and maintain fears that are sometimes invisible at a conscious level.

4. Subconscious layer

Finally, we must unprocessed traumas, blocked beliefsconflicts in the different parts of the personality.

Author: Mercedes Muñoz García