Anxiety Notes: Psych 510

● 10% of young people have an anxiety disorder

● Age of onset: 7-15… most commonly around 9 or 10
● Anxiety tends to rise and fall because the subject of anxiety rises and falls
● ⅓ of children with anxiety disorders improve without treatment
● Most adults w anxiety had a pediatric-onset
● Comorbidity with mood disorders is common
○ Anxiety first and depression after...usually
● How does anxiety manifest
○ Physically: Heart rate, muscle tension, stomach ache, shaking
○ Thoughts: Anxious thoughts, snowball effect, mind racing, black or white thinking,
catastrophizing, overestimating
○ Behavior: Avoidance, irritability,
● Is anxiety good or bad?
○ Good in the right amounts
○ It’s bad if it affects their day to day functioning, if it’s excessive, if it causes
everyday distress, persistent across time
● Accommodation
● Perfectionism
● Treatments
○ CBT
○ Exposure therapy