There are seven types of anxiety disorders listed in the DSM-5-TR. This is the bible of mental health diagnoses in the U. S.
In this video you'll learn what they are. Because when you have a name for something it can help you find the skills and resources to manage it. Now, if you experience an anxiety disorder, it's not your fault, but there is something you can do about it.
[Music] This video is day six of a 30-day course on how to improve your relationship with anxiety. I'm publishing the 30 main videos to YouTube, but if you want to learn more there will be a bonus videos, workbook, Q&A's with me, and extra content in the ad-free course. I'm also going to link some free anxiety screening tests in the full course.
Okay. So before we jump into the seven types of anxiety disorders, can I just mention that it's generally a little risky to self-diagnose? So the first lesson in psych class is usually when you hear about these disorders you'll have a tendency to over-diagnose yourself, and this can be harmful, especially if you diagnose yourself without the support of someone who can teach you the skills and resources to overcome anxiety.
And that takes us to the other big myth, which is that an anxiety disorder is permanent, that it's a 100% genetic trait or that it's a character trait, that if you've been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder that you'll have it for the rest of your life, that this is who you are. Okay. So this is really important, right?
When people say, "I have anxiety," what they're usually trying to say is, "There's something wrong with me. " But as you learned in the last segment, having anxiety is a normal, natural, and healthy part of life. We're supposed to have anxiety.
So what's the difference between experiencing anxiety and having an anxiety disorder? Now, most people's first guess is severity. If you have high levels of anxiety, that must be disordered, right?
Again, no, it's normal, natural, and healthy to have high levels of anxiety before a big performance or while waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery or when facing a life-threatening experience. So it's not the level of anxiety. So then what is it?
Right? Number one: your response to anxiety interferes with your functioning. So what that really means is that avoidance of the anxiety is stopping you from living the life that you want to.
And then number two: the anxiety causes clinically significant distress. The feelings and sensations and thoughts related to anxiety seem unbearable to you. So when we come to understand anxiety disorders as being primarily about avoidance and a lack of skills knowing how to experience our feelings, when we understand anxiety this way it opens the door to seeing how treatable they are.
The other thing to know is that anxiety disorders aren't an on-off switch. The symptoms occur on a spectrum. So anxiety assessments have a clinical cutoff so when treated, when you improve your abilities to interact with your emotions, you can get to the point where you don't meet the criteria anymore because the symptoms don't bother you; they're managed.
An anxiety disorder does not have to be permanent. It's not 100% genetic. It's not necessarily who you are.
There's a lot of factors that go into that. And in the next video we'll talk about some of the biological factors of anxiety, but we're also going to talk about, in a future video, about how mental health diagnoses are quite different from what the general public understands. Okay.
Whew. That's a long intro. So my goal in teaching you about the seven types of anxiety disorders is for you to have a name for what you're experiencing.
And I want you to just hold any of these self-labels loosely. Use them when they're helpful, but don't hold them so rigidly that they limit your options. Don't label yourself so rigidly that you don't have room for growth.
Okay. So that being said, let's start with number one: generalized anxiety disorder. Now, when most people talk about having anxiety, this is what they're talking about.
Healthcare providers diagnose generalized anxiety disorder when your worrying happens on most days and for at least six months. It's being chronically worried about many things, even ordinary or routine issues, and the level of worry is disproportionate to the actual situation. Many people feel like they can't control their anxiety, and it affects how they feel physically.
You may feel tense, jittery, an upset stomach, etc. Right? And people with general anxiety disorder often struggle to remember the last time they felt relaxed.
As soon as one anxious thought is resolved, another appears. So around six percent of Americans experience this. That's one in 16 people.
And with most anxiety disorders, more women are affected than men, and the most common ages are 35 to 55. And, you know, when it's not treated, it can be chronic. It also contributes to other disorders, like panic disorder, major depression, and substance abuse disorders.
General anxiety also contributes to frequent and costly medical needs. Okay. Number two: social anxiety disorder.
Again, this is very common. Around 12 percent of people experience social anxiety in their lifetime. And that's when you have high levels of anxiety or fear around social situations.
You you worry about being judged by others or about making an embarrassing mistake. People with social anxiety often are very self-conscious. They they struggle to stop thinking about how they're holding their hands or if they're making too much eye contact.
They might feel really anxious about physical symptoms, or they might just have physical symptoms like blushing or sweating or trembling or nausea or difficulty speaking in social situations. And some people worry for days or weeks leading up to a social event, and then they'll ruminate on them afterwards. Others experience panic attacks.
And women are more likely to be diagnosed than men. And it often begins in adolescence, with the median age of onset being 13 years old. Okay.
Number three is panic disorder. It's when you have recurrent, unexpected panic attacks. These are short, sudden, intense feelings of fear.
They often peak within minutes and are often triggered by physical sensations like chest pain, shortness of breath, fluttering or pounding heart, or dizziness. The cycle of panic disorder happens when people worry about them happening again and avoid situations where they have happened or may happen. Also, when people try to suppress or control their symptoms of panic, that can also contribute to panic disorder.
Around 11 percent of the general population has had at least one panic attack in their lifetime, but it's estimated that only 4. 7 percent of people develop panic disorder, where they're having repeated panic attacks that are interfering with their functioning. Okay.
Number four: agoraphobia. It's when people avoid places or situations where they might feel anxious, trapped, helpless, or embarrassed. The criteria says that you need to feel persistent fear or anxiety around two or more of the following: public transportation; open spaces, like marketplaces or bridges; enclosed spaces, like theaters, shops, standing in line, or being in a crowd; or being outside or in the home alone.
Now, this can lead to this like slowly shrinking perimeter of safe places, and people maybe won't leave their home or they won't leave their city or their neighborhood. Now, for some people, agoraphobia develops after panic attacks. They can often be connected.
And about 1. 7 percent of people in the United States experience agoraphobia in their lifetime. Okay.
Number five: specific phobias. These are when you have an extreme fear about one specific thing, like snakes or spiders or heights or flying. Right?
Some people have panic attacks when they encounter the thing. Others create elaborate avoidance routines to prevent being exposed to the thing they fear. And this can obviously interfere with their ability to live a full life.
Specific phobias often develop during childhood, and they can be triggered by a traumatic event. About 12 percent of people experience a specific phobia in their life. So pretty common.
Okay. Number six: selective mutism. Usually this is in children.
This is when a person is unable to speak in certain settings, like uh like school or in front of peers, but they're perfectly capable of speaking in other settings, like home. Um it may look like they're refusing to speak up, but often they feel frozen and trapped and like unable to make words come out. It's estimated that it occurs in about 0.
7 percent of the general population. It's much more common in children than adults, and it often co-occurs with social anxiety or separation anxiety disorder. And that takes us to number seven, which is another childhood disorder: separation anxiety, so when a child has excessive anxiety about being away from their parents or their home.
About four percent of the general population experiences this, and again, it often co-occurs with uh generalized anxiety disorder or social anxiety disorder. Those are the seven anxiety disorders. Now, there's a couple of other relevant disorders that I personally group into this kind of broader anxiety category, even though they are distinct in their features and causes.
So OCD was originally classified as an anxiety disorder, but in 2013 it was reclassified in its own category. Anxiety is a common feature of OCD, but they have differences in brain chemistry and function, They respond best to different treatments. So for example, OCD responds better to exposure response prevention, where generalized anxiety responds better to like CBT.
OCD usually requires a behavioral symptom, some kind of action you're engaging in, where anxiety disorders don't. And anxiety disorders often include a physical component, like, you know, you're upset to your stomach or something, and that's not a physical - and that's not a requirement for OCD. And, you know, for example, another difference in approaches in treatment is like with OCD someone's frequently seeking reassurance, like, "Oh, are you mad at me?
Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me? " Right?
But reassurance can actually make the OCD worse. Whereas with anxiety, the right kind of reassurance can actually sometimes be helpful. With anxiety sometimes you can like examine and challenge certain thinking types, where with OCD it can actually lead to really unhelpful Loops if you engage too much with intrusive thoughts or um, you know, obsessive thoughts.
PTSD, it shares a lot of symptoms with anxiety disorders, but it could be considered that PTSD is a mental injury, not a mental illness. PTSD is triggered by a traumatic event, but a lot of people experience traumatic events without developing PTSD. So PTSD is basically when your nervous system gets stuck in hyperdrive, being trapped in a state of constant vigilance, tension, and fear or shutting down, right?
People experiencing PTSD also frequently have flashbacks, unwanted or distorted memories, and these symptoms interfere with their ability to function and enjoy life. There's also a lot of other conditions that are directly connected to anxiety. They either have some symptoms of anxiety or anxiety can lead to these disorders.
So for example, depression is often preceded by a period of intense stress and anxiety. Substance abuse disorders may come from an attempt to regulate anxiety or PTSD with drugs. Um illness anxiety, or health anxiety, which was previously called hypochondria, is connected to OCD, and as is hoarding disorder and skin picking and hair pulling disorders.
Anorexia is commonly associated with anxiety and fears. And it's easy to find anxiety around many of the symptoms in many of the other disorders in the DSM. So in the next video in this series we're going to talk about the truth about diagnoses, how they aren't as permanent as you may think, how there's a lot you can do to promote your mental wellness and even resolve anxiety disorders so that you no longer have them.
When it comes down to it, it's recommended that you work with an individualized provider like your therapist or doctor when your anxiety is interfering with your work, your relationships, or other parts of your life, when it's hard to control your worry or fears or if you have suicidal thoughts. Now, if you don't have the skills to manage your anxiety, the symptoms of anxiety usually don't just go away on their own, and it's easier to treat anxiety sooner rather than later. So of course I encourage you to work with an individual provider, and I also know that the skills in this course are going to help you too.
Okay. For those of you in the full course, make sure to take time, check out the workbook, and um explore how these labels are helpful and not helpful for you. Okay.
Thanks for watching, and take care.
