Anxiety Disorder Management • Therapy for Anxiety • Greene Psychology

Anxiety

Greene Psychology Group in Raleigh, North Carolina provides a range of therapies for mental health conditions, including anxiety. If you suffer this common disorder, you know how it affects daily functioning. As well as your ability to achieve goals. Absolutely, through treatment provided by our experienced therapists, you can learn to cope with stress. Thereby avoiding the struggles associated with feeling anxious.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is anticipation of a future problem. The resulting muscle tension, fear and avoidance behaviors are actually a normal reaction in dangerous situations. As your fight or flight response, anxiety can help you remain alert. Additionally, it assists you to remain focused on what you need to do to keep yourself safe from harm. But anxiety disorders involve excessive anxiety or fear in otherwise normal circumstances. As part of your condition, you experience a range of troublesome symptoms.

Symptoms of anxiety include:

Nervousness, restlessness or feeling tense

Feeling a sense of doom or panic

Increased heart rate

Rapid breathing

Sweating and trembling

Weakness or fatigue

Concentration problems

Sleep problems

Gastrointestinal problems

Excessive worry

Avoidance behaviors

Anxiety disorders can affect your work performance, schooling and personal relationships. Indeed this disorder may leave you feeling quite isolated by your symptoms. However, it is important to note that about 30 percent of American adults share this condition at some point in their lifetime. The good news is that through treatment you can enjoy a normal and productive life.

Treatment

Treatment starts with diagnosis by a qualified therapist. Your diagnosis may be for one of several types of disorders related to anxiety, such as:

Generalized anxiety disorder
Panic disorder
Specific phobias
Agoraphobia
Social anxiety disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Separation anxiety disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder

Psychotherapy is one of the most effective treatment methods. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one type of talk therapy that provides great results for many people. This treatment method can help you learn how your thought patterns, feelings and behaviors relate to your symptoms. As part of CBT, you also learn how to change negative thinking to a more objective view, along with healthy coping skills.

How common are these disorders?

According to the American Psychiatric Association, these disorders affect a significant number of Americans. These population statistics include:

Two percent have generalized anxiety disorder
Two to three percent have panic disorder
Seven to nine percent have specific phobias
Seven percent have social anxiety disorder
One to two percent have separation anxiety disorder
Two percent have agoraphobia

Women are particularly susceptible to these conditions. As you can see, you are not alone in your symptoms and how they affect your daily life. Risk for developing one of the above disorders includes genetic, psychological, developmental and environmental factors. These conditions can even run in families.

Specific Types of Anxiety Disorders

As mentioned above, there are multiple types of these disorders. Some of the most common include:

Generalized Anxiety

Generalized anxiety disorder is a pattern of excessive worry that disrupts daily living. If you have this condition, you experience a range of physical and mental symptoms, including restlessness, ongoing worry, muscle tension, edginess, concentration problems, sleep problems and fatigue. Your worry is often about work, family matters, car repairs, appointments or other minor events.

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder causes recurring panic attacks with a range of symptoms, such as:

Heart palpitations or rapid heartbeat
Sweating, trembling and shaking
Shortness of breath or choking feeling
Chest pain or abdominal pains
Dizziness, light-headedness or feeling faint
Chills or hot flashes
Tingling or numbness
Feelings of detachment
Fear of dying or losing control

Many people suffering these attacks believe they are having a heart attack. It is often in a hospital emergency department that the first diagnosis of panic attacks occurs.

Specific Phobias

Specific phobias are excessive fear of a specific situation, activity or object. More often than not, these objects of fear are not harmful. Most people with phobias know their fear is excessive. Still, they cannot overcome their symptoms without treatment. Common phobias like these are fear of flying and spiders.

Social Anxiety

Social anxiety relates to fear of being humiliated, embarrassed, rejected or looked down upon as part of social interaction. If you suffer this condition, you possibly have an extreme fear of eating or drinking in public, meeting new people or public speaking.

Separation Anxiety

This disorder causes excessive fear about being separated from people close to you. Someone affected this way typically worries about losing the closest person to them, to the point that they suffer a range of distressful symptoms like nightmares. It can cause reluctance to go out or be away from the other individual.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

OCD includes repeated obsessions that cause distress which the affected person tries to relieve by performing actions called compulsions. Common obsessions include excessive worry of harm coming to certain people, germ contamination or needing exactness or symmetry. To alleviate these obsessions, the person performs actions like repeated checking, counting or organizing. Related disorders include hoarding, body dysmorphia, skin-picking or excoriation, and hair-pulling, also called trichotillomania.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is a specific phobia related to situations where the person fears escape is difficult. It can also relate to fear of being embarrassed, such as by panic symptoms. This fear typically lasts at least six months and causes disruption in daily activities. Symptoms relate to at least two of these situations:

Being outside of your home
Using public transportation
Being in enclosed spaces
Being in open spaces
Standing in line
Being in a crowd

To deal with their symptoms, the person typically avoids putting himself or herself in these situations, particularly alone. Many people with this condition stop leaving their house.

Diagnosis and Treatment for Your Anxiety

If you believe you suffer an anxiety disorder, the experienced psychologists of Greene Psychology Group in Raleigh, NC can help. Schedule your first in-person, online therapy or teletherapy visit today by calling 919-205-5339.