Causes

Generalized anxiety refers to an overall state resulting from several factors:

• stress agents emanating from the environment;

• biological factors, i.e., a form of hereditary predisposition;

• psychological factors, such as an inefficient or inoperative defence mechanism.

Pathological anxiety may be caused by three types of illness:

• Physical illness, e.g., hyperthyroidism. In this case, anxiety is called ‘secondary’ and it will disappear following recovery.

• Mental illnesses (other than anxiety disorders): depression, psychoses and bipolar disorders often accompany marked anxiety. In such cases, an improvement in the mental disorder may considerably reduce anxiety.

• A whole range of anxiety disorders such as anxious depression, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder. When these syndromes are present, the anxiety is called a ‘primary’ phenomenon, i.e., predominant.

Anxiety has no single cause; rather, it is triggered by a combination and sum of factors – physical (biological) and environmental (stress agents).

The causes and symptoms of the various anxiety disorders differ, depending on the type of disorder presented. The following table briefly summarizes the causes and symptoms of anxiety in its various forms.

	General anxiety	Anxiodepressive states	Panic
Principal causes	First, individual biological or psychological factors; next, stress agents in the environment.	Mostly difficulty adapting to an external factor.	The first cause seems to be an alteration in the brain. Biological factors play an important role. Studies also mention genetic factors. Environmental factors play a less important role.
Symptoms	tension, upper or lower back pain cardiac discomfort, palpitations chest pains fear by anticipation sleep disorders difficulty concentrating These symptoms must persist for at least a month.	lack of interest lack of energy strong sense of guilt passivity sadness However, the person is not lethargic and is still able to work.	spontaneous attacks palpitations sense of suffocating sweating or shivering feeling of fainting. The paroxysm of a panic attack is usually reached in 10 minutes; it then gradually subsides.

 

Scientists are currently studying the importance of heredity and the biochemistry of the brain in the origin and generation of anxiety disorders. It seems more and more likely that biochemical imbalances might be responsible for the appearance of these illnesses.