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Anxiety can be a normal reaction to stress. It can help us deal with a tense situation, study harder for an exam, keep focused on an important speech. In general, it can help us cope. But when anxiety becomes an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling condition. Examples of anxiety disorders are obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. Symptoms of many of these disorders begin in childhood or adolescence.
Yesterday
- The brain areas and circuitries underlying symptoms of anxiety disorders were unknown.
- No targeted psychotherapies for anxiety disorders existed.
- Clinicians did not have strong information to help them make treatment decisions between a specific psychotherapy, medication alone, or a combination of medication and psychotherapy.
Today
- A large, national survey of adolescent mental health reported that about 8 percent of teens ages 13-18 have an anxiety disorder, with symptoms commonly emerging around age 6. However, of these teens, only 18 percent received mental health care.
- Imaging studies show that children with anxiety disorders have atypical activity in specific brain areas, compared with other people. For example:
