Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Psychodynamic

Three kinds of anxiety realistic, neurotic, and moral. Realistic Anxiety occurs when we face a real danger or threat, such as oncoming tornado. Neurotic Anxiety occurs when we are repeatedly prevented from expressing our id impulses. The energy of those impulses is not allowed release, and it causes anxiety. For example, a person who feels he can never act on his sexual urges may experience neurotic anxiety. Moral Anxiety occurs when we have been punished for expressing our id impulses, and we come to associate those impulses with punishment, causing anxiety.

Humanistic and Existential

Humanistic explanation of generalized anxiety suggests that children who do not receive unconditional positive regard from significant others become overly critical of themselves and develop conditions of worth, harsh self standards they feel they must meet in order to be acceptable

Generalized anxiety disorder to existential anxiety, a universal human fear of the limits and responsibilities of one's existence. Existential anxiety arises when we face the finality of death, the fact that we may unintentionally hurt someone, or the prospect that our lives have has no meaning. We can avoid existential anxiety by accepting our limits and striving to make our lives meaningful, or we can try to silence that anxiety by avoiding responsibility or by conforming to others rules.

Cognitive

Generalized Anxiety Disorder suggest that the cognitions of people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder are focused on threat, at both the conscious and nonconscious levels. At the Conscious level, people with generalized Anxiety Disorder have a number of maladaptive assumptions that set them up for anxiety, such as "I must be loved or approved of by everyone,". The Unconscious cognitions of people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder also appear to be focused on detecting possible threats in the environment. Some of the words have special significance for a person with chronic anxiety, such as disease or failure, whereas other words have no special significance.