Understanding Of Anxiety Neurosis
Anxiety neurosis is the most prevalent kind of psychoneurosis. Though anxiety is a sign of various mental disorders, in this syndrome it dominates the clinical picture and other signs including as recession is but minor characteristics of the total illness. .
Hereditary factors play a part, although a relatively small part, in the genesis of anxiety neurosis, manifestations of anxiety being found in 15% of siblings and parents victims, that is more than in the population as a whole (5%). Twice as many women as men are affected.
In addition to the genetic trait, the even more important cause is emotionally disturbing experiences during the early formative years. These traumatic experiences need not be highly distressing nor need they be single events such as early loss of the mother.
An isolated trauma is therefore not to be expected as a frequent predisposing cause in early life. More often it’s found that the patient’s early years were attended by prolonged insecurity. For example, a parent may have been so burdened by problems that the child felt unloved, if not unwanted; a brother or sister may have seemed to get preferential treatment; or a mother’s own exaggerated anxieties may have imparted an excessive timidity to her child, profoundly undermining the child’s self-confidence.
Painful events, such as bereavement, a reverse in a love affair, disappointment in one’s career, being obliged to contend with disagreeable or frankly hostile people at work, or being involved in prolonged domestic strife, may cause a vulnerable individual to succumb to feelings of anxiety that interfere objectively with the capacity to cope with the daily routine.
The outstanding feature of the illness is anxiety, with its accompanying feeling of inner tension and unpleasant anticipation. Sometimes the anxiety is fear of a potential danger but often it’s a diffuse dread. The fear and foreboding fluctuate in intensity, being sometimes a mild feeling of tension or nervousness, at other times a state of panic that the patient can be overwhelmed by a feeling of terror.
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