Anxiety disorder

An anxiety disorder involves excessive fear or anxiety that causes significant distress or interferes with daily life. Its patterns persist beyond ordinary, short-lived responses to stress or danger.

Anxiety: An emotional state of apprehension and heightened anticipation of possible threat. Excessive anxiety is central to these disorders, though ordinary anxiety alone is not a disorder.
Amygdala: A set of brain nuclei involved in processing emotionally significant information, including threat. Threat-related learning and responses involve amygdala circuits, alongside broader brain networks.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: A structured psychotherapy that changes unhelpful patterns of thought and behavior. It is a widely used treatment for anxiety disorders and often includes exposure.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: A disorder involving intrusive obsessions and repetitive compulsions that cause distress or impairment. It was grouped with anxiety disorders in older classifications but has its own category in current manuals.
Generalized anxiety disorder: A disorder involving persistent, excessive worry across multiple areas of life that is difficult to control. It exemplifies anxiety spread across everyday concerns rather than confined to one trigger.
Fear: An emotional response to a perceived or actual imminent threat. Fear is the immediate-threat response that can become persistent or disproportionate in anxiety disorders.
Conditioning: A family of learning processes in which experience changes responses to stimuli. Associations between cues and danger can help establish persistent fear and anxiety.
Exposure therapy: A psychotherapy that gradually confronts feared cues or situations while reducing escape and avoidance. Repeated, planned contact with feared situations can support new learning and reduce avoidance.
Post-traumatic stress disorder: A disorder that can follow trauma and involves symptoms such as re-experiencing, avoidance, and heightened arousal. It shares fear and arousal symptoms but is classified among trauma- and stressor-related disorders.
Panic disorder: A disorder involving recurrent unexpected panic attacks and ongoing concern or behavioral change related to them. It centers on recurrent attacks and their anticipated consequences.

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