Anxiety Disorders: Treatment with Online Psychologist

Anxiety is a normal sensation that in fact fulfills adaptive functions, so feeling it occasionally does not have to be a cause for concern. However, when it becomes too recurrent or disabling, we may be dealing with an anxiety disorder.

What Are Anxiety Disorders? What Are Your Causes?

Anxiety disorders are conditions characterized by the appearance of anxiety (defined as an anticipatory response to a future threat), fear (an emotional response to an imminent threat) and the behavioral changes associated with these feelings, when this occurs continuously or in recurring episodes and the magnitude of the reaction is disproportionate to the real threat. It is one of the most common and prevalent types of mental disorder.

There are many different anxiety disorders, depending on the type of feelings that the affected person experiences and the event that triggers the episodes or ongoing feelings.

These include generalized anxiety disorder (frequent anxiety without a specific cause), panic disorder, and panic disorder with agoraphobia, phobic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and separation anxiety disorder and treated by the experts who provide psychological services.

Its causes are not entirely known. Researchers are considering the possibility that hereditary factors play a role in the development of anxiety disorders, and traumatic events are known to cause them in people who may have a certain propensity for anxiety.

In some cases, anxiety can be caused by a physiological illness, such as heart disease, diabetes, thyroid problems, certain respiratory disorders, substance use or withdrawal, chronic pain, tumors, and irritable bowel syndrome.

What Are The Symptoms?

The main symptom of anxiety disorders is, worth redundancy, anxiety, which, as we have pointed out, must be disproportionate to the real and continuous or recurring threat. This can occur together with irritability, racing or disordered thinking, a feeling of pressure in the chest, hyperventilation, hyper vigilance (very high level of alertness to the body itself) and other manifestations.

Similarly, it can lead to or coincide with behavioral alterations (usually of an avoidant nature), depression, alcohol or drug use, hypochondria, suicidal thoughts or behaviors, episodes of depersonalization (perception of ‘separation’ from one’s own body or mental processes, as if observed ‘from the outside’), derealization (perception that the environment is unreal or distant, as if it were the scene of a dream), sleep disorders, digestive or intestinal problems, headache, chronic pain, social isolation, work or student problems and, in general, a decrease in the quality of life of the patient.

How Can It Be Treated?

The two main lines of treatment for anxiety disorders are psychotherapy and anxiolytic drugs, often in combination.

In the case of psychotherapy, this is usually cognitive-behavioral, focused on the short term and on providing the patient with specific techniques to improve symptoms and be able to gradually eliminate the impact of anxiety on the patient’s quality of life.

One of the most widely used techniques in the psychotherapeutic treatment of anxiety disorders is exposure therapy, in which the patient is gradually exposed to the anxiety trigger so that a certain progressive desensitization occurs.

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As for the drugs, they will depend on the specific type of anxiety disorder. For example, it is common to use certain types of antidepressants (particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs) or buspirone for long-term treatment and benzodiazepines (sedative or hypnotic) to control symptoms in the short term.