anxiety disorder
Anxiety disorders are blanket terms covering several different forms of abnormal and
pathological fear and anxiety
 which
only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the very
end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes (2005) explains that anxiety disorders
are classified in two groups: continuous symptoms and episodic symptoms. Current
psychiatric diagnostic criteria recognize a wide variety of anxiety disorders. Recent
surveys have found that as many as 18% of Americans may be affected by one or more of
them.
The term anxiety covers four aspects of experiences an individual may have: mental
apprehension, physical tension, physical symptoms and dissociative anxiety (symptoms
associated with hyperventilation). Anxiety disorder is divided into generalized
anxiety, phobic, and panic disorders; each has its own characteristics and symptoms
and they require different treatment (Gelder et al 2005). The emotions present in
anxiety disorders range from simple nervousness to bouts of terror (Barker 2003).
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