We all become anxious sometimes, from fear of exams, starting a new job, or wondering how a new friendship will turn out. Just living is an anxious business at times. But for some people, anxiety is not just a gnawing worry-it is incapacitating.
A true anxiety disorders involves a severe and persistent level of fear or worry that can be almost as damaging to the individual`s everyday functioning as psychosis. For example, the victim may be afraid to go out in public or to meet new people. These fears may prevent the person from functioning in a job or in other areas of normal life. According to DSM-III, “It has been estimated that from 2 to 4 percent of the general population has at some time had an anxiety disorder”.
Anxiety is not only an unpleasant emotion; it can also affect individuals physically, disturbing their breathing and increasing heart activity and sweating. These, of course, are the symptoms of fear; yet anxiety is different from fear. Fear is a correct response to a real danger, while anxiety is an irrational reaction to vague or imagined dangers. It may include panic attacks and a sense of impending doom or a consistently anxious feeling that lasts for months.
A typical anxiety disorder is claustrophobia - intense fear of enclosed spaces. When persons with this disorder enter a small area such as an elevator, they suffer a strong physical reaction. Other anxiety disorders include agoraphobia, a fear of crowded places; social phobias, such as the fear of having someone watch you while you write in public; recurrent panic attacks, some so bad they resemble heart attacks, and involuntary, irrational obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. The obsessive thoughts are often about contamination or violence; the compulsive behavior is often ritualistic. Thus, a person with obsessive thoughts about germs may have a compulsion to wash his or her hands constantly, becoming extremely anxious if prevented from doing so.
References :
American Psychiatric Association, DSM-III.
Marvin R Levy, Mark Dignan, Janet H Shirreffs, Essentials of Life & Health, Fourth Edition, Random House, New York, 1984.
