Table of ContentsSummaryWhat is anxiety?What is fear?What is stress?Anxiety disordersCognitive theoryComparison of cognitive theoryDiscussionSummaryAnxiety disorders can be treated in different ways. Even if some methods seem more effective than others, does that mean that the other methods are bad and will not give people the help they are looking for? Should we combine different methods to achieve even better results? The most commonly practiced treatments are biological vision, cognitive vision and cognitive-behavioral vision; there are many others, but these seem to be more widely known (Comer, 2014). Focusing primarily on cognitive therapy in this article, in order to compare the differences in the effects of each method, we need to research how each treatment is managed and its success rate and/or longevity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayTreatment of Anxiety Disorders, Including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Their Accompanying Stress: Cognitive Therapy in ComparisonTo fully understand What you face when treating a patient with an anxiety disorder requires a clear understanding of what exactly anxiety is. Accompanied by stress and fear, anxiety itself can get somewhat lost in translation. It is commonly believed that fear and anxiety traits go hand in hand, but recent research shows that this is not the case (Sylvers, Lilienfeld, & LaPrairie, 2011). Very often people are treated on the basis that their fear and anxiety are the same disorder, but shouldn't they be diagnosed separately? When a person's anxiety becomes severe enough, it can cause somatic symptoms. In the DSM-5, the category of anxiety disorders was separated and significantly simplified, and several disorders were removed as anxiety disorder; Obsessive-compulsive disorder now falls into the category of “obsessive-compulsive and related disorders” (Wittchen, Heinig, & Beesdo-Baum, 2014). Because anxiety disorders are often comorbid with what are now considered different groups in the DSM-5, it can be very difficult to properly diagnose and treat these disorders, as disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder share many characteristics and symptoms with anxiety disorders. What is anxiety? Anxiety can be described as “the physiological and emotional response of the central nervous system to a vague feeling of threat or danger” (Comer, 2014). Anxiety is extremely common across all age groups and genders, and many cultural, economic, and environmental factors affect our daily lives. In some cases, sensitivity to anxiety is age-related. In a cross-sectional study, researchers found that anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance are significantly greater in younger adults than in older adults who demonstrate more mindfulness. This study showed researchers that there is indeed a correlation between anxiety sensitivity, experiential avoidance, and mindfulness (Mahoney, Segal, & Coolidge, 2015). What is fear? Fear can be described as “the physiological and emotional response of the central nervous system to a serious threat to a person's well-being” (Comer, 2014). It is believed that the brain of a person with an anxiety disorder does not know how to properly end the fear (Milad, Rosenbaum, & Simon, 2014). Fearcan range from a sudden shock, like a squirrel running across the road in front of your car, to another car stopping in front of you and forcing you to brake suddenly. Both of these fears should disintegrate after a short period of time, but for someone struggling with an anxiety disorder, the fear is just beginning. What is stress? Stress can be described as a “specific response of the body to a stimulus, such as fear or fear.” pain, which disrupts or interferes with the normal physiological balance of an organism” (Dictionary, 2016). Stress is made up of two elements: stress factors and stress reactions. When a person reacts to stress, their sympathetic nervous system is activated and the “fight or flight” response kicks in to defuse the situation. When stress becomes intense enough, it affects your cardiovascular system and often leads to death. Major stress can cause hypertension and stroke (Hering, Lachowska, & Schlaich, 2015). Understanding how to reduce your stress is essential to living a healthy life, but for someone suffering from an anxiety disorder, it's much easier said than done, so therapies and treatments must come into effect as an aid. supplement for people suffering from these disorders. being one of the most common mental health problems, often occurring at the same time as another mental disorder, it is very important to find the most effective way to treat it (Kroenke, Spitzer, Williams, & Lowe, 2010) . While cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on first understanding one's own thought processes and fears and then modifying the thoughts to affect them in more positive ways, one biological theory is that by changing the circuits mPFC-amygdala of the brain, fear will therefore be eliminated in someone. with an anxiety disorder. Dopamine release in the basolateral amygdala is thought to facilitate this process by depressing the activity of intercalated cell nuclei, typically during times of stress and fear, when dopamine is released in high doses (Bukalo, Pinard, & Holmes, 2014). . With this knowledge, it seems that cognitive behavioral therapy and this particular biological theory would do great things for the brain when combined as a treatment. Psychoneuroimmunology is “the link between stress, the immune system and disease” (Comer, 2014). Psychoneuroimmunology helps us understand the relationship between the immune system and the central nervous system. He conducts substantial research on major depressive disorder, with promising results in most cases. Researchers wonder whether cytokines play as important a role in anxiety as we have come to believe (Hou and Baldwin, 2012). If this is indeed the case, this is where somatic symptoms come into play, and researchers are unfortunately still struggling to find ways to treat anxiety disorders when they reach this level of self-destruction. Cognitive theoryCognitive theory proposes getting to the root of the problem itself can treat abnormal brain functioning. By recognizing the illogical thought processes, as most cases can be described, that people with an anxiety disorder possess, one can use this information to their advantage; therefore, changing their inappropriate assumptions. Having maladaptive beliefs can cause a person to completely overreact to a simple daily stressor (Conway, Slavich, & Hammen, 2015). Most people with an anxiety disorder tend to overgeneralize, which unfortunately leads to even moreunnecessary stressors in their daily lives. Overgeneralization, or “drawing broad negative conclusions based on a single insignificant event” (Comer, 2014), is a very common cognitive error and has been associated with a strong correlation with trait anxiety and of depression. Similar to overgeneralization, catastrophizing and personalization (also cognitive errors) appear to be related to overt anxiety and anxiety sensitivity (Weems, Berman, Silverman, & Saavedra, 2011). Cognitive therapy is often combined with behavioral therapy, also known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. Behavioral theorists believe that our experiences in life are what cause us to behave the way we do. Common treatments in the field of behavior therapy are classical conditioning and systematic desensitization. Research shows that CBT actually contributes to the remission of anxiety disorders. Of 22 randomized controlled trials, 95% of results show positive rewards when treated with CBT (Cartwright-Hatton, Roberts, Chitsabesan, Fothergill, & Harrington, 2004). Cognitive Theory Comparison Although cognitive therapy and CBT show very promising results, it is safe to conclude that these treatments are not suitable for every person and every anxiety disorder. In a study comparing psychodynamic therapy, a therapy that aims to uncover inner conflicts and past trauma (Comer, 2014), to CBT, researchers used a symptom questionnaire with their subject being college students with anxiety disorders. Thirty students were assigned to CBT and 24 students to psychodynamic therapy (PDT). All students completed the symptom questionnaire before their assigned therapy and again after a full year of their assigned therapy. After comparing the results of the questionnaires, the researchers found that the 54 students showed a significant decrease in their anxiety in the CBT group and in the PDT group (Monti, Tonetti, & Ricci Bitti, 2014). Researchers have looked more closely at biological theory. , which is more from a medical perspective than CBT. Recent findings show that anxiety disorders are sometimes associated with educational and social impairments in children; these impairments typically follow people into adulthood. Up to 35 to 40% of children receiving CBT do not achieve remission of their anxiety disorders. In a study of 116 children with an anxiety disorder, researchers measured DNA methylation before these children received CBT and then measured it again after therapy. Children who responded to CBT experienced an increase in methylation, while children who did not respond to therapy experienced a decrease (Roberts et al., 2014). A study of 1,768 subjects aged 10 to 12 showed that people with high levels of anxiety had significantly lower evening cortisol levels than people without anxiety. To expand their research on the cortisol-anxiety relationship, researchers also noticed that people with high morning cortisol levels experience notably severe anxiety. More research needs to be done to fully understand whether this is caused by environmental factors, but this research nevertheless shows a correlation between cortisol levels and anxiety (Greaves-Lord, Oldehinkel, Ormel, Verhulst, & Ferdinand, 2009). Another biological perspective is relaxation training. In a study comparing CBT.