Introduction/A New Concept in the Treatment of Anxiety

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Nonpanic anxiety disorders, particularly those subsumed in the DSM-IV underGeneralized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Anxiety Not Otherwise Specified (NOS), and Adjustment Disorders, have always been of less interest to psychiatrists than depressionand other mental disorders. Yet the aggregate incidence, chronicity, and functionaldisability suggest that the public-health effect of generalized anxiety approachesthat of major depression. One reason for this lack of interest on the part of psychiatristsmight be that most GAD and other anxious patients are treated in family practice andare referred to the psychiatrist only as a last resort, usually when the anxiety is complicatedby significant comorbidity.