The anxiety disorders

This chapter examines the construct of anxiety in greater detail and reviews the various diagnoses within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) of the American Psychiatric Association, which included anxiety as a central feature of the disorder. These include generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia/social anxiety disorder, specific phobia, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It briefly examines the issues related to categorical versus dimensional conceptualizations of mental disorders, and how these disorders are classified, their defining features and their commonalities and differences. It shows that comorbidity, the co-occurrence of two or more disorders, is very common, and that high rates of comorbidity point to the possible artificiality of categorical classifications of psychological disorders. Depression and its various manifestations (e.g., dysthymia and major depression) are common comorbid conditions with the anxiety disorders. The anxiety disorders in the DSM in the context of the characteristics of music performance anxiety are reviewed.