Panic attacks, phobias, compulsive behaviors are just some of the ways in which anxiety disorders find expression, which is important to recognize and treat, avoiding that the disease becomes chronic over time, creating significant existential limits. more widespread in modern society among both children and adults. International statistics indicate that about 13.3% of the population suffers from it without counting those who suffer from it, but has not yet been diagnosed.
If you want to view the summary slides on Anxiety Disorder in adults click here, otherwise continue reading.
Characterization of anxiety
L’Ansia è una reazione adeguata quando:
• è attivata da un pericolo reale e scompare quando il pericolo viene a cessare.
L’Ansia è una reazione inadeguata / patologica quando:
• è sproporzionata rispetto alla realtà della situazione
• non può essere controllata mediante un’analisi razionale
• sfugge al controllo volontario
• produce l’evitamento della situazione temuta
The social costs of anxiety
Research shows that anxiety disorders, if not treated early and effectively, end up becoming chronic, causing a high cost to people and society: job loss, reduction in working capacity, depression. Public health expenditure increases dramatically: the average visits to the family doctor is 3-5 times higher than a person who does not suffer from it and the frequency of hospitalization is 6 times greater. Some research data carried out on people suffering from panic attack disorders can highlight:
• Reduction of professional skills in 80% of cases
• Loss of work in 25% of cases
• Difficulty driving the car in 50% of cases
• Secondary depression in 60% of cases
• Use of alcohol in 15% of cases
Anxiety can be measured
In our Institute we use a biofeedback tool to measure the physiological indices of anxiety and carry out a psychophysiological profile and a tacogram. Electrodes are placed on the forehead and on the fingers of the hands and allow you to view the level of muscle tension and heartbeat on a monitor: learning to control them becomes easier.
In recent years, the panorama of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapeutic strategies with protocols consolidated by scientific research allows you to get out of the anxiety trap, learn how to manage anxiety, improve the quality of life and be free to choose.
What does this psychotherapy consist of
At our “Wolpe Institute” center we adopt protocols with individual and group psychotherapeutic paths that focus on the modification of thought patterns that do not allow to overcome fears, on the modification of behavioral reactions to the factors that trigger anxiety with Exposure techniques and of systematic desensitization and on the emotional modification that leads us to reduce the anxiety of anxiety, to accept the sensations, to increase, tolerate and gradually develop security and autonomy.
Summary
Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is a type of short therapy, on average positive results are obtained from three to six months of treatment with one or two weekly sessions.When a disorder has lasted for many years, the intervention is longer and more complex, because structured maladaptive thoughts and dysfunctional ways of acting. In addition to the factors that triggered the problem and the personality characteristics there are the factors that maintain the problems including all the avoidances activated by people to reduce anxiety.With some subjects who have a rigid personality structure, the therapeutic program must be delayed over time in small doses: an acceleration in change would risk decompensating them.