IndexAbstractWhat is anxiety?What is fear?What is stress?Anxiety disordersCognitive theoryComparison of cognitive theoryDiscussionAbstractAnxiety disorders can be treated in many different ways . Although some methods seem more effective than others, does that mean that other methods are wrong and won't give people the help they're looking for? Should you combine different methods to create even better results? The most commonly practiced treatments are the biological vision, the cognitive vision and the cognitive-behavioral vision; there are many others, but these seem to be more in the public domain (Comer, 2014). Focusing primarily on cognitive therapy in this article, in order to compare the differences in the effects of each method, we must research how each treatment is administered and its success rate and/or longevity of success. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Treatment of Anxiety Disorders, Including OCD, and the Stress That Accompanying Them: Cognitive Therapy Compared To fully understand what you are dealing with when treating a patient with an anxiety disorder, you need fully understand what exactly anxiety is. Accompanied by stress and fear, anxiety itself can get lost in translation. It is commonly believed that fearful and anxious traits go hand in hand, but recent research shows this is not the case (Sylvers, Lilienfeld, & LaPrairie, 2011). Very often people are treated on the basis that 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 DSM-5, the category of anxiety disorders was separated and greatly simplified, and multiple disorders were removed as anxiety disorders; obsessive-compulsive disorder now falls under the category “obsessive-compulsive and related disorders” (Wittchen, Heinig, & Beesdo-Baum, 2014). Considering that anxiety disorders are often comorbid with what are now considered to be in different groupings in the DSM-5, it can be very difficult to adequately diagnose and treat these disorders, since disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorders share so 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 sense of threat or danger” (Comer, 2014). Anxiety is extremely common across all age groups and genders, with many cultural, economic and environmental factors influencing our daily lives. In some cases, sensitivity to anxiety is age-related. In a cross-sectional study, researchers found that anxiety sensitivity and experimental avoidance are much more significant in young adults than in older adults who show greater mindfulness. This study showed researchers that there is indeed a correlation between anxiety sensitivity, experimental 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 one's well-being” (Comer, 2014). It is believed that the brain of a person with anxiety disorder does not know how to adequately eliminate fear. fear (Milad, Rosenbaum, & Simon, 2014). Fear can be anything from a sudden shock, such as a squirrel running across the road in front of your car, to another car moving away in front of you and you having to slam on the brakes. shot Both of these fears should disintegrate after a short time, but for someone struggling with an anxiety disorder, thefear has only begun. What is stress? Stress can be described as a "specific response of the body to a stimulus, such as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological balance of an organism" (Dizionario, 2016). Stress is made up of two components: Stress and stress responses: When you respond to stress, the sympathetic nervous system is activated and the “fight or flight” response kicks in to defuse the situation. The stress becomes quite severe, affecting the cardiovascular system and often resulting in death Increased stress can cause high blood pressure and stroke (Hering, Lachowska, & Schlaich, 2015). Understanding how to reduce stress is vital to living a healthy life, but for those with an anxiety disorder, this is easier said than done. be done, then therapies and treatments need to come into force as extra help for people with these disorders Anxiety disorders With anxiety disorders being one of the most common mental health problems, often occurring alongside another mental disorder,. it is very important to find the most effective way to treat them (Kroenke, Spitzer, Williams, & Lowe, 2010). While cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on first understanding your thought processes and fears, then changing your thoughts to influence them more positively, one biological theory is that by modifying the brain's mPFC-amygdala circuitry, the fear will consequence eliminated by someone. with an anxiety disorder. Dopamine release in the basolateral amygdala is thought to aid in this process by depressing the activity of intercalated cell nuclei, typically in 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 if combined as a treatment. Psychoneuroimmunology is “the connection between stress, the immune system and disease” (Comer, 2014). Psychoneuroimmunology helps us understand the relationship between the immune system and the central nervous system. It has extensive research on major depressive disorder, with promising results in most cases. Researchers question whether or not cytokines play as big a role in anxiety as we have come to believe (Hou & Baldwin, 2012). If this is indeed the case, this is where somatic symptoms come into play, and researchers unfortunately still struggle to find ways to treat anxiety disorders when they reach this degree of self-destruction. Cognitive Theory Cognitive theory proposes to get to the root of the problem itself can treat the abnormal functioning of the brain. By recognizing the illogical thought processes, as can most often be described, that people with an anxiety disorder possess, you can use this information to your advantage; ergo, modifying their maladaptive 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, unfortunately leading to even more unnecessary 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 linked to having a strong correlation with traits of anxiety and depression. Similar to overgeneralization, catastrophizing and personalizing (even cognitive errors) appear to be linked to overt anxiety and anxiety sensitivity (Weems, Berman, Silverman, & Saavedra, 2011). Cognitive therapy is often combined withbehavioral therapy, also known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. Behavioral theorists believe that our experiences in life are what make us behave the way we do. Common treatments in the field of behavioral therapy are classical conditioning and systematic desensitization. Research shows that CBT actually helps in the remission of anxiety disorders. Of 22 randomized controlled trials, 95% of results show positive outcomes when treated with CBT (Cartwright-Hatton, Roberts, Chitsabesan, Fothergill, & Harrington, 2004). Comparison of Cognitive Theory 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 different anxiety disorder. In a study comparing psychodynamic therapy, a therapy that aims to uncover inner conflicts and past traumas, (Comer, 2014) with CBT, researchers used a symptom questionnaire with college student subjects with anxiety disorders. Thirty students were assigned to CBT and 24 students were assigned to psychodynamic therapy (PDT). All students completed the symptom questionnaire before assigned therapy and then once again after a full year of assigned therapy. After comparing the results of the questionnaires, the researchers found that all 54 students showed a significant decrease in anxiety in both the CBT and PDT groups (Monti, Tonetti, & Ricci Bitti, 2014). The researchers delved into the biological theory, which is more of a medical perspective than CBT. Recent findings show that anxiety disorders are sometimes associated with educational and social disorders in children; these impairments usually accompany people into adulthood. Approximately 35-40% of children undergoing CBT do not achieve remission of anxiety disorders. In a study of 116 children with anxiety disorders, researchers measured DNA methylation before these children received any CBT, and then measured it again after therapy. Children who responded to CBT had an increase in methylation, while children who did not respond to therapy had a decrease (Roberts, et al., 2014). A study involving 1,768 subjects, aged 10 to 12 years, showed that people with high levels of anxiety showed drastically lower evening cortisol levels than people without anxiety. To broaden their research into the cortisol-anxiety relationship, the researchers also noted that people with high morning cortisol levels have significantly severe anxiety. More research is needed to fully understand whether this is caused by environmental factors, but nevertheless this research 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 to relaxation training, researchers grouped 344 patients currently being treated for alcohol use disorder (AUD) into two groups: CBT treatment and progressive muscle relaxation treatment (PMRT). All patients being treated for AUD had comorbid anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, or panic disorder). The researchers performed their assessments on all 344 patients immediately after treatment, and then four months after treatment, which showed a dramatic decrease in alcohol consumption and a large reduction in anxiety in the CBT group; CBT treatment was shown to produce significantly better results than the PMRT group. The researchers concluded that teaching patients that there is a.