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Anxiety Disorders
Background
Anxiety can be generalised often with no obvious trigger (free floating) or focused in response to a specific cause.
A phobia is an intense aversion which is focused on a specific object or situation. It is associated with fear of the particular stimulus, expressed as an anxiety state in particular circumstances with a specific focus when extreme. In extreme instances it is experienced by the affected individual as a panic attack.
The 'panic' attack is actually a physiological response to danger. The body prepares to 'fight or run.' To achieve this, the blood supply is diverted from one part of the body to another, the heart rate and breathing rate increase and sweating occurs. These effects produce the conscious experiences of panic and impending threat. Panic attacks are self-limiting, although phobic individuals may feel them to be life-threatening and may even believe they are experiencing a fatal event.
The focus of the attack in phobic conditions is directed to a real object or situation which becomes associated with the individual's particular fears. A phobia may reach proportions in which the individual's freedom of action is severely curtailed. In such circumstances family members are also affected.
Amongst common phobias are agoraphobia (fear of open space) and claustrophobia (fear of enclosed space), snake phobia or spider phobia.
Obsessive compulsive disorder
is a situation where the individual has to perform specific actions ('compulsions') such as washing or specific repeated thoughts ('obsessions') which may show as counting rituals. These activities in very severe cases may reach such proportions, that individuals' entire lives, and those of their families, are centred upon them.
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