Anxiety and Depression Are Often Combined

Anxiety and depression can each be individually experienced, described, diagnosed and treated. Each one, in and of itself, can be intense enough to seriously interfere with a person's ability to lead a satisfying life. Many times, they go hand-in-hand and, quite literally like in any unhealthy human relationship, bring out the very worse in each other.

The two conditions are not terribly difficult to diagnose. Depression and anxiety are most often cited as the two most common reasons that people seek mental health treatment.

The phenomenon of the two conditions co-existing is not difficult to understand. A person who is anxious and is worried about something that may happen, depending upon that individual's temperament, is apt to become either agitated or depressed. A person experiencing depression often begins to feel nervous about the impact the depressed mood is having upon their life. The two conditions interact and are rarely mutually exclusive.

Depression and anxiety existing in a recognizable form at the same time is a referred to as "comorbid" conditions. In both children and adults presenting for treatment with one or the other, the current percentage of those who are suffering from both is understood to be around around 60%.

Not surprisingly, the treatment for the two seemingly diverse conditions can be quite similar. The two most common and established effective protocols include medicine and some form of talk-therapy.

The most frequently used psychiatric medications for anxiety and depressive disorders is some variety of a class of drugs called Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs.) These drugs, of which there are many specific varieties, are useful in the treatment of both conditions whether they are independently free-standing or are part of a comorbid consortium.

The most useful type of talk therapy for either or both depression and anxiety is individual or group work using what is called Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) techniques which focus less than traditional, psychoanalytically derived psychotherapy on how things got the way they are and more on developing more effective ways of coping with the here-and-now.

In nearly forty years of direct clinical practice, I have found the 60% shown in the most current studies as being at least correct. The percentage of people I see who present with either anxiety or depression is actually closer to 75%. Many of my colleagues have found this to be the case as well.

The specific percentage is not, however, of the essence. Rather, the reality of the frequency of the coexistence of these conditions is something that any therapist needs be aware of and be prepared to effectively diagnose and treat.