Anxiety is a normal emotional response to certain situations , and constitutes an adaptive response to more or less stressful life events.

In other words, a certain degree of anxiety is desirable for the normal handling of daily demands. It is a warning signal that alerts to a danger and allows the person to take the necessary steps to deal with a potential threat; this makes the corresponding fight or flight response possible.

However, sometimes this level of alertness reaches an extreme.

When anxiety becomes a problem

Anxiety is pathological when it goes from being an adaptive response to becoming a discomfort that causes a deterioration in the person’s life with both physiological and cognitive symptoms. This can be caused either by an excessive level of anxiety in the face of possible danger, or by an inadequate anxiety response that appears in the face of non-existent danger but which part of the brain structure interprets as threatening.

This pathological anxiety is related to present or recent events, but also to events lived in the past that have generated beliefs, fears and defenses at a very deep level and that are affecting today.

Types of associated disorders

According to the diagnostic manuals of mental disorders, among the Anxiety Disorders are the following:

1. Generalized anxiety

Excessive and persistent concern that occurs continuously.

2. Agoraphobia

Terror of meeting in open or crowded spaces.

3. Panic attacks

Episodes of high anxiety, with high intensity somatic symptoms , which occur without justified reason.

4. Social phobia

Fear of social situations such as meetings, parties…

5. Specific phobia

Elevated fear of specific situations or triggers (animals, objects…)

6. Post-traumatic stress

Excessive fear generated from an event experienced as dangerous or that has generated a change in the way of interpreting life or the world around us.

The layers of anxiety

Depending on the type of disorder and each person, psychological treatment may vary , always taking into account the different layers of the internal structure in which the anxiety is present and the work to be done in each of them.

1. Outer layer

You have to take into account the person’s current symptoms, situations and current anxiety triggers, by providing tools to manage their difficulties and to manage the symptoms of anxiety.

2. Intermediate layer

It is necessary to understand and work on the cognitive structure and how the distortions are affecting and maintaining anxiety.

3. Inner layer

It is also essential to work with the parts of the personality that are generating these “alarms”, parts that have been blocked and keep fears sometimes invisible at a conscious level.

4. Subconscious layer

Finally, we must discover unprocessed traumas, blocked beliefs , conflicts in the different parts of the personality.

Author: Mercedes Muñoz García