Anxiety Read online

  Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction

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  ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher

  AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone

  AGNOSTICISM Robin Le Poidevin

  AMERICAN IMMIGRATION David A. Gerber

  AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS L. Sandy Maisel

  THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY Charles O. Jones

  ANAESTHESIA Aidan O’Donnell

  ANARCHISM Colin Ward

  ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

  ANCIENT GREECE Paul Cartledge

  ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas

  ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom

  ANGELS David Albert Jones

  ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman

  THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair

  THE ANIMAL KINGDOM Peter Holland

  ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

  ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller

  ANXIETY Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman

  THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS Paul Foster

  ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

  ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne

  ARISTOCRACY William Doyle

  ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

  ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

  ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

  ATHEISM Julian Baggini

  AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick

  AUTISM Uta Frith

  THE AZTECS Davíd Carrasco

  BARTHES Jonathan Culler

  BEAUTY Roger Scruton

  BESTSELLERS John Sutherland

  THE BIBLE John Riches

  BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY Eric H. Cline

  BIOGRAPHY Hermione Lee

  THE BLUES Elijah Wald

  THE BOOK OF MORMON Terryl Givens

  THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

  BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright

  BUDDHA Michael Carrithers

  BUDDHISM Damien Keown

  BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown

  CANCER Nicholas James

  CAPITALISM James Fulcher

  CATHOLICISM Gerald O’Collins

  THE CELL Terence Allen and Graham Cowling

  THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

  CHAOS Leonard Smith

  CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Kimberley Reynolds

  CHINESE LITERATURE Sabina Knight

  CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham

  CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

  CHRISTIAN ETHICS D. Stephen Long

  CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

  CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy

  CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Helen Morales

  CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson

  CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

  THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

  COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE Rolena Adorno

  COMMUNISM Leslie Holmes

  THE COMPUTER Darrel Ince

  THE CONQUISTADORS Matthew Restall and Felipe Fernández-Armesto

  CONSCIENCE Paul Strohm

  CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore

  CONTEMPORARY ART Julian Stallabrass

  CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley

  COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

  CRITICAL THEORY Stephen Eric Bronner

  THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman

  CRYPTOGRAPHY Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

  THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION Richard Curt Kraus

  DADA AND SURREALISM David Hopkins

  DARWIN Jonathan Howard

  THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Timothy Lim

  DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick

  DERRIDA Simon Glendinning

  DESCARTES Tom Sorell

  DESERTS Nick Middleton

  DESIGN John Heskett

  DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY Lewis Wolpert

  THE DEVIL Darren Oldridge

  DICTIONARIES Lynda Mugglestone

  DINOSAURS David Norman

  DIPLOMACY Joseph M. Siracusa

  DOCUMENTARY FILM Patricia Aufderheide

  DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

  DRUGS Leslie Iversen

  DRUIDS Barry Cunliffe

  EARLY MUSIC Thomas Forrest Kelly

  THE EARTH Martin Redfern

  ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

  EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford

  THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

  EMOTION Dylan Evans

  EMPIRE Stephen Howe

  ENGELS Terrell Carver

  ENGINEERING David Blockley

  ENGLISH LITERATURE Jonathan Bate

  ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS Stephen Smith

  EPIDEMIOLOGY Rodolfo Saracci

  ETHICS Simon Blackburn

  THE EUROPEAN UNION John Pinder and Simon Usherwood

  EVOLUTION Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

  EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

  FASCISM Kevin Passmore

  FASHION Rebecca Arnold

  FEMINISM Margaret Walters

  FILM Michael Wood

  FILM MUSIC Kathryn Kalinak

  THE FIRST WORLD WAR Michael Howard

  FOLK MUSIC Mark Slobin

  FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY David Canter

  FORENSIC SCIENCE Jim Fraser

  FOSSILS Keith Thomson

  FOUCAULT Gary Gutting

  FREE SPEECH Nigel Warburton

  FREE WILL Thomas Pink

  FRENCH LITERATURE John D. Lyons

  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION William Doyle

  FREUD Anthony Storr

  FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven

  GALAXIES John Gribbin

  GALILEO Stillman Drake

  GAME THEORY Ken Binmore

  GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh

  GENIUS Andrew Robinson

  GEOGRAPHY John Matthews and David Herbert

  GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds

  GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle

  GERMAN PHILOSOPHY Andrew Bowie

  GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire

  GLOBAL ECONOMIC HISTORY Robert C. Allen

  GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin

  GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger

  THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway

  HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson

  HEGEL Peter Singer

  HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

  HERODOTUS Jennifer T. Roberts

  HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

  HINDUISM Kim Knott

  HISTORY John H. Arnold

  THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin

  THE HISTORY OF LIFE Michael Benton

  THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS Jacqueline Stedall

  THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE William Bynum

  THE HISTORY OF TIME Leofranc Holford-Strevens

  HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside

  HOBBES Richard Tuck

  HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood

  HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham

  HUMANISM Stephen Law

  HUME A. J. Ayer

  IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

  INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton

  INFORMATION Luciano Floridi

  INNOVATION Mark Dodgson and David Gann

  INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary

  INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION Khalid Koser

  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Paul Wilkinson

  ISLAM Malise Ruthven

  ISL
AMIC HISTORY Adam Silverstein

  ITALIAN LITERATURE Peter Hainsworth and David Robey

  JESUS Richard Bauckham

  JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves

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  KAFKA Ritchie Robertson

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  KEYNES Robert Skidelsky

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  THE KORAN Michael Cook

  LANDSCAPES AND GEOMORPHOLOGY Andrew Goudie and Heather Viles

  LATE ANTIQUITY Gillian Clark

  LAW Raymond Wacks

  THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS Peter Atkins

  LEADERSHIP Keith Grint

  LINCOLN Allen C. Guelzo

  LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

  LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler

  LOCKE John Dunn

  LOGIC Graham Priest

  MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner

  MADNESS Andrew Scull

  MAGIC Owen Davies

  MAGNETISM Stephen Blundell

  THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips

  MARTIN LUTHER Scott H. Hendrix

  MARX Peter Singer

  MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers

  THE MEANING OF LIFE Terry Eagleton

  MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope

  MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths

  MEMORY Jonathan K. Foster

  MICHAEL FARADAY Frank A. J. L. James

  MODERN ART David Cottington

  MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter

  MODERN FRANCE Vanessa R. Schwartz

  MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta

  MODERN JAPAN Christopher Goto-Jones

  MODERN LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE Roberto González Echevarría

  MODERNISM Christopher Butler

  MOLECULES Philip Ball

  THE MONGOLS Morris Rossabi

  MORMONISM Richard Lyman Bushman

  MUHAMMAD Jonathan A. C. Brown

  MULTICULTURALISM Ali Rattansi

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  MYTH Robert A. Segal

  NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

  NELSON MANDELA Elleke Boehmer

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  THE NEW TESTAMENT Luke Timothy Johnson

  THE NEW TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE Kyle Keefer

  NEWTON Robert Iliffe

  NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

  NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew

  THE NORMAN CONQUEST George Garnett

  NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green

  NORTHERN IRELAND Marc Mulholland

  NOTHING Frank Close

  NUCLEAR POWER Maxwell Irvine

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS Joseph M. Siracusa

  NUMBERS Peter M. Higgins

  OBJECTIVITY Stephen Gaukroger

  THE OLD TESTAMENT Michael D. Coogan

  ORGANIZATIONS Mary Jo Hatch

  PAGANISM Owen Davies

  PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

  PAUL E. P. Sanders

  PENTECOSTALISM William K. Kay

  THE PERIODIC TABLE Eric R. Scerri

  PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig

  PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Raymond Wacks

  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Samir Okasha

  PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

  PLAGUE Paul Slack

  PLANETS David A. Rothery

  PLANTS Timothy Walker

  PLATO Julia Annas

  POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller

  POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

  POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young

  POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler

  POSTSTRUCTURALISM Catherine Belsey

  PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

  PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Catherine Osborne

  PRIVACY Raymond Wacks

  PROBABILITY John Haigh

  PROGRESSIVISM Walter Nugent

  PROTESTANTISM Mark A. Noll

  PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns

  PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and Freda McManus

  PURITANISM Francis J. Bremer

  THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion

  QUANTUM THEORY John Polkinghorne

  RACISM Ali Rattansi

  THE REAGAN REVOLUTION Gil Troy

  REALITY Jan Westerhoff

  THE REFORMATION Peter Marshall

  RELATIVITY Russell Stannard

  RELIGION IN AMERICA Timothy Beal

  THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton

  RENAISSANCE ART Geraldine A. Johnson

  RISK Baruch Fischhoff and John Kadvany

  RIVERS Nick Middleton

  ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway

  THE ROMAN EMPIRE Christopher Kelly

  ROMANTICISM Michael Ferber

  ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

  RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

  RUSSIAN HISTORY Geoffrey Hosking

  RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION S. A. Smith

  SCHIZOPHRENIA Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

  SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway

  SCIENCE AND RELIGION Thomas Dixon

  SCIENCE FICTION David Seed

  THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION Lawrence M. Principe

  SCOTLAND Rab Houston

  SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier

  SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

  SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt

  SLEEP Steven W. Lockley and Russell G. Foster

  SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY John Monaghan and Peter Just

  SOCIALISM Michael Newman

  SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

  SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor

  THE SOVIET UNION Stephen Lovell

  THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Helen Graham

  SPANISH LITERATURE Jo Labanyi

  SPINOZA Roger Scruton

  STATISTICS David J. Hand

  STEM CELLS Jonathan Slack

  STUART BRITAIN John Morrill

  SUPERCONDUCTIVITY Stephen Blundell

  TERRORISM Charles Townshend

  THEOLOGY David F. Ford

  THOMAS AQUINAS Fergus Kerr

  TOCQUEVILLE Harvey C. Mansfield

  TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

  THE TUDORS John Guy

  TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan

  THE UNITED NATIONS Jussi M. Hanhimäki

  THE U.S. CONGRESS Donald A. Ritchie

  THE U.S. SUPREME COURT Linda Greenhouse

  UTOPIANISM Lyman Tower Sargent

  THE VIKINGS Julian Richards

  VIRUSES Dorothy H. Crawford

  WITCHCRAFT Malcolm Gaskill

  WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling

  WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

  THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION Amrita Narlikar

  WRITING AND SCRIPT Andrew Robinson

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  LANGUAGES Stephen R. Anderson

  RADIOACTIVITY Claudio Tuniz

  THE ROMAN REPUBLIC David Gwynn

  STARS Andrew King

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  Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman

  ANXIETY

  A Very Short Introduction

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,

  United Kingdom

  Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

  It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

  ©Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman 2012

  The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

  First Edition published in 2012

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights
organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

  You must not circulate this work in any other form

  and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

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  ISBN 978-0-19-956715-7

  Printed in Great Britain

  on acid-free paper by

  Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire

  Contents

  Preface

  List of illustrations

  1 What is anxiety?

  2 Theories of anxiety

  3 Nature or nurture?

  4 Michael Palin and Graham Taylor: Everyday anxiety and how to cope with it

  5 Phobias

  6 Social phobia

  7 Panic disorder

  8 Generalized anxiety disorder

  9 Obsessive-compulsive disorder

  10 Post-traumatic stress disorder

  11 Treatment

  Appendix: Self-assessment questionnaires and further information

  Sources

  Further reading

  Index

  Preface

  Anxiety is one of the fundamental emotions, as central a part of what it means to be human as happiness, sadness, or anger. If you were asked to recall the last time you felt anxious, doubtless you wouldn’t have to look back very far.

  In its more severe forms, anxiety is also one of the most common types of psychological disorder, with millions of people around the world affected at any one time.

  There’s no doubting the importance of anxiety, then. But though we all experience this emotion, perhaps on a regular basis, for many of us it can seem a pretty mysterious experience. Rather like the biblical description of the wind, we recognize anxiety when it arrives but know neither where it’s come from nor where it’s going.

  So we begin this Very Short Introduction by defining the meaning of anxiety. We attempt to pin down what anxiety is; what it feels like; and what its purpose might be. Though everyone feels anxious from time to time, how often we experience anxiety and how severely it affects us varies from person to person. To understand why this is, in Chapter 2 we focus on the four main theoretical perspectives on anxiety: the psychoanalytic, behavioural, cognitive, and neurobiological. We build on this discussion in Chapter 3 by considering how our genes and life experiences influence our susceptibility to anxiety.