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Essay about Anxiety Disorder

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Anxiety Disorder What is Anxiety? As defined by Understanding Psychology by Glencoe, Anxiety is a general state of dread or uneasiness that a person feels in response to a real or imagined danger. Anxiety affects 19 million Americans annually and anxiety disorder happens to be the most common mental illness in America. There are many different types of anxiety disorder such as: Panic Disorder, Obsessive – Compulsion Disorder, Phobias, and a few more. Although there is no cure for anxiety disorders, there are treatments to reduce symptoms. Panic Disorder is a type of anxiety disorder that consists of feelings of sudden fear, overwhelming fright, and fear of death. Panic disorder can be inherited, but it can also be the result of …show more content…

However medication should be used only if needed and should be combined with therapy. Obsessive – Compulsion disorder is again another type of anxiety disorder characterized by repeated or uncontrollable thoughts and compulsions that seem to be impossible to stop or control. People that have OCD often do things such as washing their hands, checking, counting, and cleaning to avoid the obsessive thought. The causes of OCD are still being researched, but OCD is now being associated with neurobiology, but is no longer being associated with childhood experiences. OCD occupies 2 percent of the United States’ population in a given year. However OCD can be linked with other mental and physical disorders such as: depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD,) and some anxiety disorders. Treatment for OCD is no different than any other anxiety disorder. The treatments consist of medication and behavioral therapy. The medication sometimes is not effective but another medication should be tried in the non-effective ones place. Some medications that are used to treat OCD are: clomipramine, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine and paroxetine. Behavioral therapy is another effective treatment for OCD. Therapist use a method called “exposure and response prevention.” This method has proven useful in the treatment of OCD patients because the patient is voluntarily put in a situation that could possibly trigger and OCD attack,

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