Major Psychological Disorder> Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorder happens when a person feels nervous or worried without an obvious reason for a long time, interfering with daily life. The term "anxiety" comes from the Latin word "Anxietas," meaning an uneasy or troubled mind. Normal anxiety motivates people during exams or public speaking, but disorders cause excessive fear and avoidance.

• GAD involves intense tension that interferes with daily routines and work performance, unlike mild tension that helps face challenges.
• Symptoms must persist for at least four weeks in children and six months in adults for diagnosis.
• People with GAD feel extreme fear of the unknown, increased heartbeats, irritability, headaches, constant worry, insomnia, nausea, uneasiness, breathlessness, and blackouts.
• The worry in GAD is unrealistic, excessive, free-floating, and stems from unconscious sources, not recent events.

• Phobic disorders feature intense, irrational fear of specific objects or situations like heights, water, darkness, or crowds, despite low danger.
• The fear leads to avoidance at any cost, creating adjustment problems in daily life for more than six months.
• Ninad experienced unexplained fear looking down from a hill or the 15th floor, identifying it as acrophobia.
• "Phobia" derives from "Phobos," the Greek god of fear; subtypes include specific phobia, social phobia, and agoraphobia.

• Panic disorder causes frequent, unpredictable anxiety attacks with intense terror, breathlessness, palpitations, trembling, dizziness, and fears of dying or losing control.
• Separation anxiety disorder involves extreme distress when separating from home or attachment figures, common in children with tantrums or school refusal.
• Generalised anxiety disorder shows prolonged vague fears, hypervigilance, and motor tension, such as restlessness.
• Other types include selective mutism and disorders induced by substances or medical conditions.

• Everyone experiences anxiety as a vague, unpleasant fear with symptoms like rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, loss of appetite, and tremors.
• High anxiety levels become distressing, interfere with functioning, and indicate a disorder.
• Physical signs include diarrhoea, fainting, sleeplessness, frequent urination, and nausea.

• When a person feels nervous or worried without any obvious reason for a long time such that it starts interfering with the daily life, it is called Anxiety Disorder.
• Ross defines anxiety disorder as a series of symptoms which arises from the faulty adaptation to the stresses and strains of life.
• The term anxiety is usually defined as a diffuse, vague, very unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension.

A panic attack denotes an abrupt surge of intense anxiety rising to a peak when thoughts of a particular stimulus are present.

• Claustrophobia: Fear of closed or confined spaces like lifts or small rooms.
• Hydrophobia: Fear of water.
• Nyctophobia: Fear of darkness.
• Zoophobia: Fear of animals (e.g., dogs, snakes, insects).
• Hemophobia: Fear of blood or injections.
• Aerophobia: Fear of flying.
• Social Phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder): Fear of speaking or performing in front of others.
• Agoraphobia: Fear of open spaces or crowded places; fear of leaving home.

Hema's Case Study:

• Hema felt her heartbeats increase, became breathless, and perspired profusely while driving home from work.
• She felt scared, stopped the car, and got out immediately, with these episodes increasing over the days.
• She grew scared of driving in heavy traffic, fearing death, and eventually stopped driving and leaving home.
• She experienced frequent crying spells and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

• Anxiety disorder is a long-lasting excessive worry or fear that interferes with daily life.
• GAD involves unrealistic and persistent worry with symptoms like restlessness, headache, and rapid heartbeat.
• A phobia is an intense and irrational fear of specific objects or situations, leading to avoidance.
• Panic disorder causes sudden panic attacks with breathlessness and fear of losing control or dying.
• Severe anxiety shows symptoms like sweating, dizziness, tremors, nausea, and sleep problems.