Anxiety Disorder Treatment
Are you struggling with an anxiety disorder?
We understand how difficult it can be to live with an anxiety disorder and we’re here to help. Amend Treatment provides the care, support, and anxiety disorder treatment needed to heal your mind, body, and spirit. You don’t have to go through this alone, we are here for you every step of the way.
Our anxiety disorder treatment involves a variety of therapy modalities, including cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), yoga therapy, and more. All therapies are designed by our team of experts so they work together seamlessly in order to give you the best possible recovery experience. Let us guide you on your journey towards wellness!
Contact Amend Treatment and discover how anxiety disorder treatment can help you heal today.
Overview
We all experience anxiety every now and then. Some common situations that can cause anxiety include interviewing with a potential employer, speaking in front of a group, or going on a first date. This type of anxiety is normal and can help motivate us. However, when feelings of anxiety become overwhelming and prolonged, an anxiety disorder might be the cause.
Anxiety disorders are one of the most common types of mental health disorders in the United States. Over 40 million adults in the U.S. (19.1%) have some type of anxiety disorder. While anxiety disorders can be debilitating, anxiety disorder treatment is available.
While anxiety is a treatable disorder, only 36.9% of people with anxiety disorders receive treatment for their anxiety disorder. Because anxiety can be so debilitating, it’s important that treatment is sought out at the earliest sign of symptoms.
Symptoms
There are several common signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders. Knowing the symptoms of anxiety disorders is important for identifying anxiety. Learning how to manage anxiety can ensure less anxiety in one’s life.
The symptoms of anxiety include:
- Feelings of dread
- Restlessness or feeling on edge
- Being easily fatigued
- Difficulty concentrating because your mind keeps wandering
- Irritability
- Muscle tension
- Trouble sleeping or insomnia
- Sweating
- Headaches
- Upset stomach
If anxiety is left untreated it can lead to serious anxiety disorder treatment problems. Anxiety symptoms can become so severe that they interfere with daily tasks like work, school, and family life. Unfortunately, anxiety disorders are often overlooked. It’s important to recognize the symptoms of anxiety early on in order for anxiety disorder treatment to be most effective.
Anxiety can be a symptom of other disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse — making anxiety more difficult to treat and manage. However, anxiety can also manifest with no obvious cause. Anxiety disorder treatment is focused on the anxiety symptoms and how they affect your life rather than what’s causing them to occur.
Types Of Anxiety Disorders
There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and phobias. Each of these anxiety disorders has different symptoms.
For this reason, it’s important to contact a mental health treatment center for help identifying the specific type of anxiety disorder. A mental health professional will offer an initial assessment, which will help identify the type of anxiety disorder. This is a crucial step in the anxiety disorder treatment process, as it will ensure you receive the individualized treatment needed to help you address and heal the specific type of anxiety disorder.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
People with general anxiety disorder experience anxiety or anxiety-related symptoms most days of their lives.
Generalized anxiety disorder is the most common anxiety disorder, affecting nearly 7 million adults in the U.S. This type of anxiety disorder often lasts for over six months and often causes people to experience excessive anxiety about many different things at once.
The anxiety experienced by people with anxiety disorders who live with GAD is not as severe as other anxiety disorders, but can still significantly interfere with daily life.
Social Anxiety Disorder
People with social anxiety disorder are often thought of as shy, but that’s not an accurate description. Social anxiety disorder is an intense fear of being scrutinized or judged by others. It is the only category of anxiety disorders in which people are afraid of social interaction.
People with social anxiety disorder are at increased risk for depression, also. Social anxiety disorder often begins during the teenage years and carries into adulthood unless it’s diagnosed and treated early on.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by panic attacks. A panic attack is a sudden surge of overwhelming fear that appears without warning and for no reason.
This type of anxiety disorder affects more than 5 million people in the U.S., women being twice as likely to have it as men. Panic disorder often develops after a traumatic life event, such as a death in the family or a serious illness.
A mental health professional will be able to identify this specific anxiety disorder and offer an anxiety disorder treatment plan specifically designed to help people with panic disorder.
Phobia Disorders
Phobias are types of anxiety disorders that cause people to experience severe fear or dread in response to certain things or events. While most people have at least one phobia, it’s only considered a disorder if the fear is so intense and overwhelming that it disrupts daily life.
A phobia is an intense, irrational fear of something that presents little to no danger. This type of anxiety disorder is one of the most common types in the U.S., affecting more than 19 million American adults. While some types of phobias are specific to only one person, others are more common.
People with phobia disorders experience unusually strong or persistent fear about being around certain types of people, animals, objects, situations, etc., which can often interfere with their ability to function in daily life. Some of the most common types of phobias include the following:
- Social phobias – the fear of social situations
- Agoraphobia – the fear of open spaces
- Acrophobia – the fear of heights
- Pteromerhanophobia – the fear of flying
- Claustrophobia – the fear of enclosed spaces
- Entomophobia – the fear of insects
- Arachnophobia – fear of spiders and other arachnids
- Ophidiophobia – the fear of snakes
- Cynophobia – the fear of dogs
- Astraphobia – the fear of storms
- Trypanophobia – the fear of needles
- Mysophobia – the excessive fear of germs and dirt
The types of fears and specific objects of those fears vary from person to person. While most people experience at least one type of phobia during their lifetime, they’re only diagnosed with a disorder if they have an unusually high level of fear that causes them to avoid certain places, events, or situations.
People with phobias realize that their intense feelings of fear are irrational but they still feel unable to control them.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and excessive fear related to being away from home or in unfamiliar places. It’s one of the most common types of childhood mental illness, affecting nearly 8 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 18. While every child experiences some degree of separation anxiety during early life, it usually goes away on its own without treatment.
However, an estimated 3 percent of children continue to experience symptoms into adulthood. This type of anxiety disorder may develop after a child’s separation from his/her parent or parents through a divorce, natural disaster, military deployment, illness, or death.
Separation anxiety disorder is also the most common mental health diagnosis in U.S. children that’s associated with specific medical conditions. These include diabetes, asthma, food allergies, and epilepsy.
People with this type of anxiety disorder experience severe distress when they’re separated from their home, family members, or even pets to the point that it interferes with their ability to function normally in all areas of life. They may worry excessively about losing their loved ones or experience nightmares about separation.
People with this type of anxiety disorder also often develop anticipatory anxiety, in which they become nervous or fearful about future separations even if they’re able to be near the people or things they fear now. This doesn’t mean that the person is truly in danger; rather, it’s a sign of an anxiety disorder.
For adults with this separation anxiety disorder, treatment usually involves psychotherapy to help them learn new ways of coping with their fears of separation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is often used because it can help adults identify destructive thought patterns and behaviors, change them over time, and make them less fearful about the future.
Causes
Many factors may combine to cause anxiety disorders, including environmental, social, hereditary, and developmental factors. Some types of anxiety are not well understood but are still identified as types of anxiety disorders due to their nature or symptoms that may include intense fear or conditions that develop over time.
Many types of anxiety disorders run in families, which suggests a strong genetic link. However, environmental factors can also contribute to developing types of anxiety disorders. There may be some types of anxiety disorders that are related to mood or personality disorders, such as major depressive disorder or specific types of personality disorder.
As with most types of mental disorders, anxiety disorders may be caused by imbalances in the body’s hormones or neurotransmitters. A type of naturally occurring chemical known as serotonin helps to regulate moods and behaviors like aggression and anger. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression and anxiety disorders.
Exposure to traumatic or highly stressful events is also believed to be a major factor in the development of anxiety disorders.
Anxiety disorders can be caused by physical illnesses, such as heart disease and hypothyroidism, but this is rare.
Mental health professionals use a standardized tool called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) to diagnose types of anxiety disorders. The DSM -5 is recognized as the authority on mental health types of disorders and must be used by all types of mental health professionals.
Anxiety Disorder Treatment
Anxiety disorders are generally treated with psychotherapy. Psychotherapy or “talk therapy” can help the patient to identify and challenge types of distorted thinking, build coping skills, and learn relaxation techniques.
In addition, anxiety disorders may be treated with medication or a combination of psychotherapy and medication.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety Disorder Treatment
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an example of one type of psychotherapy that can be used to treat anxiety disorders.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a type of psychotherapy that helps patients identify distorted thinking, learn new ways of responding to certain types of situations, and change unhelpful behavior patterns. This type of anxiety disorder treatment is very effective in treating specific types of anxiety disorders, including phobias, agoraphobia, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), social anxiety, and many other types of anxiety disorders.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be effective in treating both children and adults with different types of anxiety disorders. The purpose of CBT is to help patients identify irrational thoughts and learn new ways of thinking about certain types of situations.
This type of anxiety disorder treatment is typically performed in weekly sessions with a mental health professional for about 30-50 minutes at a time. It can be difficult at first, but it becomes easier over time as the patient gains more practice.
Medication for Anxiety Disorder Treatment
There are a number of types of medications used to treat anxiety disorders, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), benzodiazepines, antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), beta-blockers, and corticosteroids.
Most types of medications used to treat anxiety disorders are intended for short-term use.
Anxiety disorder treatment typically begins with a type of medication at the same time as the patient is participating in psychotherapy sessions. The type of medication used often changes if the initial treatment does not work or causes negative side effects.
Anti-anxiety medications are not intended to be used indefinitely. They are meant to reduce the patient’s anxiety enough so that he or she can participate in psychotherapy sessions and learn new behaviors. Over time, it is possible for some patients to decrease their dosage of medication until they no longer need it.
Anxiety Disorder Treatment at Amend
Are you interested in exploring anxiety disorder treatment?
We recognize how tough it is to live with anxiety, and we’re here to assist you.
Our comprehensive treatment approach provides people with anxiety disorders the care and assistance needed to heal. You don’t have to deal with this issue on your own any longer – we are here for you.
Anxiety disorder treatment at Amend Treatment involves an experienced multidisciplinary team of mental health professionals, including a licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, nurse, nutritionist, fitness coach, acupuncturist, and support staff who will work with you to understand your symptoms, assess your needs, and develop ways to better navigate the difficulties associated with anxiety disorders.
Contact Amend Treatment today to learn how our anxiety disorder treatment can help you heal your mind, body, and spirit.