The Diagnosis of Anxiety: Many Disorders for a Single Name

Common stresses prod a lot of us to feel some amount of anxiety. The anxiety plays a protective role by forcing us to put more effort and attention on things that strongly impact our livelihood. The effect of anxiety only becomes destructive when it begins to become the center of a person's everyday life. Under some circumstances, mental health workers consider anxiety to be a serious clinical problem. The trouble for most is in understanding when anxiety crosses the threshold from normal to disruptive. Indeed, the laymen use of the word anxiety masks its complexity as a whole group of disorders recognized by mental health physicians and noted by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Conditions range in degree of seriousness, from milder forms (e.g. generalized anxiety disorder or GAD), to more serious ones (e.g. obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD). Alleviation of symptoms of powerful anxiety illness, if not the total cure, is an aim which will necessitate an understanding the nature, origins and category of anxiety.

Everyday stressors, encompassing situations such as changing jobs or quitting a career, are all sources of anxiety. Nervousness, jumpy feelings, and extra attention to detail are responses to these events of normal intensity of anxiety. In contrast, those suffering from an anxiety disorder will experience much more powerful versions of these emotions. In addition, people with anxiety disorders are also overcome with persistent worry and feelings of doom, to the extent that they also endure physical symptoms such as tiredness, headaches, trembling and sweating.

A large number of conditions are grouped under the umbrella term "anxiety", as it is listed in the DSM-IV. Three are noted here to illustrate the complexity of the disease and the need for sufferers to gain understanding into their disorder. In the first, people with a condition called "panic attack" are prone to sudden onset of panic together with profuse sweating and chest pains with apparently no trigger. Unlike "panic attacks", the second example is the condition of OCD, which makes patients feel low-level, persistent fear which compels them to repeat motions in an attempt to reduce the fear. For the final example, "social anxiety disorder" makes people unable to socialize with others in a natural setting, instead feeling terror and humiliation when among them. The possibility of being a target for laughter is the reason for these fears.

To identify and categorize anxiety disorder, a psychiatrist relies on visual examination, interview responses to inquiries, and a list of symptoms associated with the disorder. Questions about bad dreams, insomnia, level and persistence of feelings of fear will be asked by the health worker. However, diagnosis is not a trivial task as the list of apparently subjective criteria seems to imply. It is true while each symptom alone does not signify unequivocal diagnosis of anxiety disorder, the sum effect of several symptoms can convince the mental health worker the case of and type of anxiety disorder.

The root causes of all these anxiety disorder is a final question in the thoughts of many. Our incomplete understanding of the nature and chemistry of the brain means our understanding of anxiety is also murky, as is true for literally all psychiatric conditions. Three sorts of root causes are commonly cited: environmental, neurochemical, and genetic. Those who believe anxiety to be largely rooted in environmental reasons think it is like diabetes. Those who acquire Type II diabetes adopt a lifestyle the habits of which make them prone to obesity. The body's response to such environment is believed to be insulin resistance. In the same way, anxiety disorders can be generated from physiological responsesi to permanently stressful situations. Likewise, brain chemistry is thought to be the basic cause of anxiety disorders. Under normal circumstances, the body emits chemicals that stimulate stress responses or chemicals that inhibit "calm" signals. If the release of chemical become dysregulated, the brain may be subjected to unending stimulation and anxiety levels can spiral out of control. Finally, some believe that anxiety disorders are borne out of genetic background. Indeed, anxiety seems to run in parent-child relationships, embodying the proof of the theory. Correct diagnosis can make a difference in procuring the correct treatment for illnesses of this complexity.


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