Essay Sample on Dealing with Anxiety

Introduction

Jenny needs help because she might be suffering from an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is a normal emotion experienced by human beings. However, when someone tension and nervousness most of the time, it becomes a mental health problem which requires medical attention. Jenny says that she had been a normal kid while growing up until she started feeling nervous and tense when studying and writing her papers at the university. She further says that her heart would pound and her hands would sweat and tremble during the tests. This shows that Jenny is suffering from anxiety disorder because these are some of the symptoms. Although sometimes these emotions are not a problem, they interfere with how one works and if not treated in time, can lead to panic attacks. In most cases, people experience anxiety when they are faced with difficult situations like stress, anger, fear or threat. For instance, in Jenny s case, she had not experienced anxiety while working as a Liberal teacher but once she joined Life Insurance, her anxiety returned. Initially, she operated smoothly at her new place of work until she started taking clients on her own. Jenny was afraid of how her clients would see her if she failed to answer the questions they asked her. She was so much concerned about saying the right things and about being judged until she decided to be writing down scripts for conversations with clients. It is clear that Jenny has a condition that needs medical attention.

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Causes

Scientists believe that anxiety disorders are mainly caused by genetic factors or stress (Alden & Taylor, 2011). They say that some families tend to have many members with anxiety issues than others. Research shows that anxiety runs in some families and this can explain why someone is experiencing anxiety if they come from a family with such a history. Similarly, exposure to stressing situations like prolonged illness, loss of a loved one, loss of job, and physical abuse can lead to anxiety.

Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder

Just like any other illness, people suffering from this condition experience it differently. To many people, anxiety affects how they function and also how they carry out their daily activities (Hofmann, 2010). For instance, Jenny failed to write her assignment papers or submitted them late and this lowered her graduation grades. To Jenny, she could not understand what was happening to her because she was always one of the top students. The general symptoms of anxiety disorder are listed below:

• Feeling tense and jumpy when faced with a difficult situation
• Irritation and restlessness when angry
• Being watchful for signs of danger and always expecting the worst to happen
• Racing heart, sweaty hands, and shortness of breath
• Sweating constantly, lack of sleep and fatigue
• Urinating frequently and upset stomach

Types Of Anxiety Disorder

Various types of anxiety disorder have different symptoms and each one of them has its own treatment plan. Below are the common types of anxiety disorder.

Panic Disorder

It is characterized by sudden feelings of terror which strike suddenly and sometimes without a warning (Dupuy & Ladouceur, 2008). Panic attacks are sometimes confused with heart attacks because it causes strong physical symptoms like dizziness, stomach pains, breath shortness, and chest pain.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People who experience this type of disorder worry about everything in life. People who worry too much about everything they face in life waste a lot of time and sometimes fail to concentrate on their work. Mostly a person with generalized anxiety disorder become exhausted easily and experience severe headaches, nausea, and tension (Shioiri, 2015). Based on how jenny behaved at Life Security, she mostly showed the symptoms of GAD because she seemed to worry too much about how her clients would think of her. Jenny also experienced tension during her third year in undergraduate which made her mess her personal project when she used the wrong power point presentation in front of the whole class.

Phobia

Phobia is triggered by several factors. People have different triggers that make them experience phobia. When people know that they fear something, they try al they can to avoid them at all costs.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Last but not least is the social anxiety disorder which causes intense where one worries so much about social humiliation. People with this disorder worry because they do not know what to say and fear to say something stupid (Dupuy & Ladouceur, 2008). The implication of this is that it makes one fear to participate in conversations, discussions, and they may become isolated. For instance, when Jenny was asked by her mentor the reason why she stopped scheduling appointments with her clients and calling them, she said that she was concerned about her clients would think of her. She feared that her clients might notice that she is nervous or they might ask questions that she did not know the answers. Therefore, it is clear that Jenny has a problem and she needs help because she is showing the signs of having an anxiety disorder.

Treatment

Medical Treatment

Over the past few decades, medical treatment of anxiety has become more tolerable and available. At the same time, researches have recommended new methods of treating this disorder due to improved understanding of its causes (Bandelow, 2008). However, despite these changes, these medications for anxiety disorder have their limitations because they do not fully achieve sustained remission from anxiety. The commonly used medications are anti-anxiety and antidepressants like Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Benefits of Medical Treatments

• They treat a wide range of anxiety disorder including phobia and generalized anxiety disorder.
• They have low side effects to the users.
• They cannot be easily abused
• Limitations

One of the limitations of using medicines to treat anxiety disorder is that patients experience serious side effects like insomnia, nausea, restless, and headache. Patients also experience sexual side effects like diminishing sexual interest and dissatisfaction (Asakura, 2015). To minimize these side effects, patients can start by taking low doses and increase the intake gradually.

The other limitation is that these drugs can metabolically react with the blood levels in the body causing withdrawal syndromes which can act as anxiety if stopped. Research shows that medicines used to treat anxiety disorder can trigger suicidal thoughts in patients below 24 years (Asakura, 2015). This means that it needs to be taken under close monitoring and supervision.

In order to recommend medical treatment for Jenny, it is important to understand that medications have different effects on different people because their bodies and brains are not the same (Alden & Taylor, 2011). It is hard to predict how one can react to an anti-anxiety or antidepressant medication. Therefore one needs to see a specialist who can try different medications before getting the right one. Therefore, it is advisable for Jenny to seek medical attention and be advised on the best medications to use.

Psychological Approaches to Anxiety Disorder

Apart from medical treatment, Jenny's condition can be treated using psychological approaches. In this case, the two recommended approaches are cognitive and humanistic approaches.

Cognitive Approach

Developed by T. Beck in 1960, cognitive therapy is a short-term, educative, and problem-solving psychotherapy procedure used to treat depression. Later, the therapy was adapted for anxiety by Beck and his colleagues. Over the last years, cognitive therapy has been effectively used to treat various types of anxiety disorder including, phobia, and panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder (Dupuy & Ladouceur, 2008). Cognitive psychology is the understanding of how human mind processes information. It involves processes such as how people acquire, interpret and remember information from the environment. For instance, people with chameleon phobia believe that chameleons are dangerous and may scan where they are for chameleons. In the process, they may see a leaf that looks like a chameleon, feel anxious that a chameleon is nearby and then respond by avoiding such places in the future.

According to cognitive theory by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, peoples thoughts leads to extreme emotions which then results to maladaptive behaviors. In this theory, Beck and Albert focused on irrational core beliefs which refer to how people think about themselves and the environment around them. Beck believed that people's perceptions greatly influence their emotions. He further suggested that a direct approach to modifying how people think would positively influence behavior change.

Anxiety Disorder Can Be Treated Using the Following Cognitive Interventions

Relaxation Training

This is a process of teaching people who worry much to relax because people who worry a great deal tend to have great muscle tension.

Cognitive Restructuring

This involves using helpful thinking patterns and teaching those people having anxiety disorder new and effective ways of tackling challenging situations (Hofmann, 2010). For instance, with a generalized anxiety disorder, cognitive restructuring mainly focuses on unhelpful attitudes and negative predictions about the future.

Humanistic Approach

Humanistic is a positive psychotherapy approach that is used to treat anxiety. It focuses on a person's individual nature rather than addressing a group of people. This approach tries to look at a person as a whole being and not from therapist's point of view (Hofmann, 2010). It emphasizes a person's behaviors and traits and how they can use their instincts to facilitate healing, fulfillment, wisdom, satisfaction, and growth within themselves. The humanistic approach was founded on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow developed this theory to explain the order of human needs and motivation. According to Maslow, people want to reach the state of self-actualization where they are contented, their needs are met and they are happy. The humanistic approach uses various methods to treat anxiety including;

Counseling

Through counseling, the humanistic approach focuses on pointing a person toward towards the direction of self-realization and self-growth (Nagata, Suzuki & Teo, 2015). Counseling involves making a person appreciate themselves the way they are and helps them use their strength to solve problems in day to day life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, jenny's problem can be solved before it becomes critical. She can choose the kind of treatment she wants to undergo or else combine medical and psychological treatment. If her condition is not treated early, it can affect her career and her personal life negatively.

References

Alden, L., & Taylor, C. (2011). Relational treatment strategies increase social approach behaviors in patients with Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder. Journal Of Anxiety Disorders, 25(3), 309-318. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.10.003. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618510002082

Asakura, S. (2015). Diagnosis and Clinical Evaluation of Social Anxiety Disorder. Anxiety Disorder Research, 7(1), 4-17. doi: 10.14389/jsad.7.1_4

Bandelow, B. (2008). The Medical Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety. CNS Spectrums, 13(S14), 37-46. doi: 10.1017/s1092852900026924. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18849910

Dupuy, J., & Ladouceur, R. (2008). Cognitive processes of generalized anxiety disorder in comorbid generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22(3), 505-514. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.05.010. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618507001156

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