Within this group of medications for anxiety, the antidepressants most prescribed for treating anxiety are those that act on the reuptake of Serotonin, a neurotransmitter not only involved in depression but also in anxiety disorders.
The dependency they cause is less than anxiolytics, but they do not have an immediate effect; instead, they begin to be noticed after 4-6 weeks of treatment. Likewise, its withdrawal must be gradual and controlled.
They also have side effects that must be taken into account, among which are nausea, weight gain, decreased sexual desire, hypertension, insomnia, a feeling of fatigue, dry mouth, dizziness, etc…
How Is Psychological Therapy For The Treatment Of Anxiety?
Psychotherapy focuses more on the origin that causes this dysfunctional anxiety and on providing psychological tools and resources so that people can face not only the problematic moment that they may be going through that has generated the anxiety but also the different situations that may arise.
The studies and investigations have clearly shown how psychological therapy is highly effective in treating anxiety disorders, maintaining the therapeutic changes produced in the long term, and with an apparent reduction in relapses.
Here the study by Fernandez-Arias, I., Labrador, FJ, and Cols (2013) stands out because they carried out a study to verify the effectiveness of psychological treatment in isolation of Anxiety Disorders.
In this study, they made two groups; the first only received psychological therapy, and the second received psychological therapy complemented with pharmacological treatment.
The results were surprising; although the two groups showed a high percentage of success and effectiveness, the most significant difference was in the treatment duration, with the group that received drug-reinforced psychological therapy taking longer.
These effects on treatment time seem to indicate that the drugs increase the costs and duration of anti-anxiety treatment, reducing the efficiency of the intervention.
Although cognitive behavioral therapy has the most scientific evidence, other state-of-the-art psychological therapies, such as acceptance and commitment therapy, are increasingly positioning themselves.
The American Psychological Association carried out an update in 2006 of treatments with empirical results based on evidence, cognitive behavioral therapy in anxiety disorders (Anxiety Disorders), the reference treatment, except in anxiety disorders. Mixed (Mixed Anxiety) where acceptance and commitment therapy are recommended.
These data are corroborated by the NICE in the United Kingdom, which recommends cognitive behavioral therapy as the first-line treatment for depressive disorder and panic phobias.
