Types of Anxiety Disorders and their Characteristics

The feeling of being anxious can come from different disorders and disorders.

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

However, when anxiety affects a person in such a way that it causes him to function abnormally in one of the areas of his life (relationships with others, school, work, etc.), then we are talking about an anxiety disorder.

In this article we will see what are the different types of anxiety disorderstheir characteristics and symptoms.

Characteristics of anxiety disorder

Individuals may experience anxiety differently, and while some suffer acute panic attacks because of their catastrophic thoughts, others experience anxious symptoms in social situations.

Likewise, some people have excessive, irrational and persistent worry and anxiety. Anxiety disorders cause a lot of suffering to the person who suffers from it, and it is one of the most common reasons for anxiety disorders.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 worldwide.

On the other hand, the symptomatology of this pathology is classified into three groups:

• BehavioralProducing changes in the way we act.
• CognitiveThe way we think 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 its characteristics

Anxiety is a set of psychological and physiological elements that have their raison d'être in Biological evolution.

And it is that in the great majority of the cases Anxiety is an adaptive mechanism useful to maximize our chances of survival.It allows us to react in time to the first signs that something is not going well 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 is an evolutionary advantage in many cases, can give rise to significant problems under certain circumstances, just as with organs that can develop diseases.

Therefore, the first distinction we must consider in order 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 anguish and anxiety.a set of psychological disorders based on anguish 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 ones are as follows.

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Panic Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Social Phobia
• Agoraphobia
• Specific Phobia

In the following lines we will go deeper 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 from it shows behaviors that may seem strange, something that happens in a variety of situations and without the need for a clear trigger of the discomfort they experience. That is, it is associated with a diffuse anxiety, which tends to be maintained over time regardless of what happens around the person.

In some cases, anxious thoughts can be beneficial for us, as they keep us alert. For example, there is nothing wrong with checking that the door to our house is locked before we go to bed, so we make sure that no one is stealing from 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 will happen to us.

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

For example, an obsession can be the following thought: "if we don't turn on and off the switch in the room ten times in a row we will 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 should be noted that although OCD has often been classified under the category of anxiety disorders, according to other criteria it is more closely associated with impulse control disorders. In fact, it has been seen that those who present this psychological disorder tend to obtain higher scores in impulsivity, which indicates that their problem is not so much the tendency to seek perfectionism, but rather the inability to avoid performing compulsions.

2. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD occurs when an individual suffers a traumatic situation that has provoked a strong emotional and stressful impact on him/her.. People with PTSD continually relive the event that triggered the disorder, for example, being a victim of rape or having participated in a war.

If the emotional impact is very great, people's distress can last for years, and some people need psychological support because they are unable to cope on their own.

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

Symptoms include:

• Reliving the trauma.Reliving the trauma: may constantly relive the trauma, for example, with nightmares.
• Responding to stressorsReliving the event: the person may 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 anxietyThe individual experiences anxiety on a regular basis.
• Emotional problemsThe person also experiences emotional problems, for example, disinterest in relationships with others.

On the other hand, it should 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.

Panic disorder

Panic disorder is characterized by the sufferer having feelings of imminent death and shortness of breath.. These 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 become one of the most disabling anxiety disorders.

Symptoms are highly debilitating and include:

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

4. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Many people experience anxiety at certain specific times: when they are about to play an important basketball game, before an exam or when they are going to meet a girl they love for the first time. However, individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) feel worried or anxious most of the time.The worries are persistent (occurring half of the days for at least six months), intense, irrational and interfere with normal functioning in some area of the affected person's life.

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

Thus, the distress associated with Generalized Anxiety Disorder is based on a feeling of diffuse discomfort, which does not arise in a specific context or with a specific stimulus. Psychological therapy is essential to combat this psychological disorder, and as its way of expressing itself is very 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 is especially true in this one).

5. Social phobia

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

Feeling shy about speaking in public is normal, but when that fear and anxiety disrupt the normal functioning of the individual's life, it becomes a severe problem. People with social phobia may avoid all types 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 conditions of people's lives. has implications for the person's material conditions of lifeThe fact of having less access to others means having less support and help.

6. Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the irrational fear of not being able to count on the help of others in an emergency.. Therefore, it often occurs when the person is in public spaces and open places, such as parks or streets. But it is not public spaces that are the root of the problem, but the possibility of suffering 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 about what may happen occurs in all anxiety disorders, but in this one it plays a leading role.

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

7. Specific phobias

Phobias are irrational fears of a specific stimulus, e.g., a situation, an object, an object of interest, or an object that is not a phobia.for example, a situation, an object, a place or a living being of a certain species. Therefore, when a person suffers from this disorder, he/she does 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 the human mind creates, and from these concepts phobias to certain natural or social phenomena are created. Some of them are really curious; you can discover them in the article: "The 15 strangest 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 commonly used resources from psychiatry. to help those who have developed anxiety disorders. These psychotropic drugs usually help to control the symptoms, but in most cases they do not put an end to these psychological disorders. On the other hand, their side effects can have very harmful consequences, so it is very important to always follow the doctor's instructions both when taking them and when stopping their use.

2. From psychological therapy

From psychotherapy there are several methods and techniques that have 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.

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