It205

Axia Collage University of Phoenix

Assignment: Mental Illness

Sharif Mursal

HCA/240

February 27, 2012

Lori Ensign

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The Quote Garden (2010) website has a quote by John Lubbock that states “a day of worrying can be more exhausting than a day of work.” For people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), the statement is oddly accurate. GAD is a new classification of anxiety disorders, and this newness leads to the multitude of misconceptions about GAD sufferers. People who suffer from GAD will often have friends and family members tell them to simply calm down, relax, and stop worrying, but those things are not as easy as they sound. Individuals with GAD suffer from a host of symptoms that include more than chronic worrying, chest pains, insomnia, and feelings of despair often accompany GAD. Luckily, medications, talk therapy, and biofeedback are a few means of treatment that can be effective once a physician or psychiatrist makes a diagnosis.

History

The medical community first recognized GAD as its own disorder in 1980. Prior to 1980, GAD and panic disorder were combined into one ailment known as anxiety neurosis (Walkley, 2010). A majority of individuals believed that those who were anxious were just generally nervous and received a diagnosis of stress or nerves, which left these individuals feeling more anxious and worrisome because their symptoms were often not treated. When anxiety was treated in the past, the treatments were often ineffective, sometimes dangerous to the patient’s health, and looking back, some were even comical by today’s standards (Healthy Place, 2010).

Prior to the formal classification of anxiety disorders, pharmaceutical treatments did not exist. Anxiety sufferers were often treated with natural remedies like herbs and balms, told to bathe in cold rivers and streams, and sent to health spas to de-stress. These therapies were abandoned with the emergence of Freud and psychoanalysis (Healthy Place,...