ANXIETY DISORDERS
DEFINITION |
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The anxiety disorders are a group of
mental disturbances characterized by anxiety as a central or core
symptom. Although anxiety is a commonplace experience, not everyone
who experiences it has an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is associated
with a wide range of physical illnesses, medication side effects,
and other psychiatric disorders.
The revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) that took place after 1980 brought major changes in
the classification of the anxiety disorders. Prior to 1980,
psychiatrists classified patients on the basis of a theory of
causality that defined anxiety as the outcome of unconscious
conflicts in the patient's mind. DSM-III (1980), DSM-III-R (1987),
and DSM-IV (1994) introduced and refined a new classification that
took into consideration recent discoveries about the biochemical and
post-traumatic origins of some types of anxiety. The present
definitions are based on the external and reported symptom patterns
of the disorders rather than on theories about their origins. |
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| ANXIETY DISORDERS RELATED ITEMS |
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