Anxiety is a symptom of frustration. It is the response of our organism when there is a desire or a need that is not being satisfied. It is our body’s way of letting us know that we have to do something to solve this problem. It can be a present frustration or the anticipation of a future frustration, the latter is what we call fear.
It can be produced for various reasons. Sometimes we have two desires that are incompatible with each other, so they can never be completely satisfied, or there may be conflicts between our desires and reality. At other times, we have not developed certain capacities necessary to satisfy certain desires.
Is anxiety something temporary that we may have at a specific moment?
Anxiety is something universal. We are all going to feel anxiety at various times in our lives. It is like physical pain, we have all experienced it and will continue to experience it in our lives, in fact, the problem would be not to feel it.
We speak of anxiety disorder when it is something that is maintained over time and significantly conditions the person’s life.
How can we detect it and at what moment should we go to a specialist?
What we are going to feel is discomfort, and the reason why the patients come to the consultation of the specialist in Psychology is to alleviate the suffering.
It is the moment to ask for help when we have a discomfort and we do not understand the reason, or we think we understand it, but it does not translate into feeling better or changing things in our life.
What does an anxiety attack consist of?
The symptoms of anxiety are very varied: tachycardia, chest tightness, sweating, etc. But the characteristic feature of the anxiety attack is the feeling that we are dying or going crazy. This is the reason why many anxiety attacks are diagnosed in the emergency room when the patient comes in believing that he or she is having a heart attack.
How long can it take to overcome anxiety?
Anxiety is a symptom. The therapeutic work involves understanding how it is being maintained and defining a work focus. Depending on the mechanism through which anxiety is maintained, treatment may be shorter or longer. In any case, the patient’s improvement will be gradual, so it is not usually necessary to wait a long time to start noticing the improvement.