Anxiety Disorders Treatment. Psychoterapy and Social-environmental methods. Medications and Pharmacoterapy.

With the use of adequate methods of therapy anxiety disorders can be cured. Common methods are:

Social-environmental methods (instruction of the patient):

Pedagogical, didactic methods.

Family therapy.

Groups of self-help.

Literature for the patients.

Media.

Methods of psychotherapy:

Relaxation training.

Biological feedback.

Cognitive psychotherapy.

Behavioral psychotherapy.

Other forms of psychotherapy.

Methods of pharmacotherapy:

Benzodiazepines. Common medications are lorazepam (AtivanR), clonazepam (KlonopinR), alprazolam (XanaxR), and diazepam (ValiumR). Benzodiazepines may also be indicated to cover the latent periods associated with the medications prescribed to treat an underlying anxiety disorder. They are used to treat a wide variety of conditions and symptoms and are usually a first choice when short-term CNS sedation is needed. Longer term uses include treatment for severe anxiety and psychosis. There is a risk of withdrawal symptoms and rebound syndrome after continuous usage past two weeks. There is also the added problem of the accumulation of drug metabolites and adverse effects.

Non-benzodiazepines. Buspirone (BusparR) is a serotonin 1A agonist. It lacks the sedation and the dependence associated with benzodiazepines and causes much less cognitive impairment. It may be less effective than benzodiazepines in patients who have been previously treated with benzodiazepines as the medication does not provide the sedation that these patients may expect or equate with anxiety relief.

Tricyclic antidepressants. Tricyclic antidepressants are a class of antidepressant drugs first used in the 1950s. They are named after the drugs' molecular structure, which contains three rings of atoms (compare tetracyclic antidepressant). The term 'tricyclic antidepressant' is sometimes abbreviated to TCA.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are a powerful class of antidepressant drugs prescribed for the treatment of depression. They are particularly effective in treating atypical depression, and have also shown efficacy in helping smokers to quit. Due to potentially lethal dietary and drug interactions they had been reserved as a last line of defense, used only when other classes of antidepressant drugs (for example tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) have been tried unsuccessfully.

Beta-adrenoblockers.

Combination of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy with pharmacotherapy frequently is the best method of treatment. However substantial part of anxiety disorders can be cured without pharmacotherapy; therefore drug treatment is recommended to assign only when other methods did not give any result or for the emergency at the beginning of the psychotherapy course.

Psychotherapy can be carried out individually, in the group or in the family. Cognitive psychotherapy helps patient to learn to recognize thoughts and feelings, which cause symptoms of anxiety, and also react to the stressful situations. Behavioral psychotherapy helps patient to replace self-destructive behavior with more positive, to decrease the level of tension and to learn how to manage stress. The cognitive and behavioral methods of psychotherapy can be successfully combined with each other and used in parallel.

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