ANXIETY

Dr. Garry R. Collins refers to it as “the official emotion of our age,” while doctors Frank Minirth and Paul Meier call it “the underlying cause of most psychiatric problems.”

Anxiety is, unfortunately, widespread among today’s youth. Psychologist Mary Pipher describes adolescents as regularly “overwhelmed by anxiety.” She writes, “The kinds of challenges they face…are just too hard for them to deal with. All the ways that early teenagers have to prove their adulthood are self-destructive things like drinking, using drugs, sexual activity, smoking. Children who are just putting away their comic books and unicorns are confronted with issues that, developmentally, they are not ready to handle.”

Stress and anxiety have become a way of life for many young people today. Dr. G. Keith Olson observes:

“Along with anger and guilt, anxiety and fear are major players in the lives of many teenagers… Anxiety can be defined as the experience of unrest, apprehension, dread, or agitated worry. It has been described as fear in the absence of real danger, or fear of something that is not fully understood… Anxiety, fear, and worry form a complex system of emotions that makes clear differentiation between them quite difficult. They tend to overestimate the negative or threatening aspects of a situation while drawing attention away from the positive or reassuring aspects. The person is left feeling uneasy, concerned, restless, irritable, and fidgety.”

The Causes of Anxiety

“The causes of anxiety are many,” write Minirth and Meier. “It can be the result of unconscious intrapsychic conflicts. It can be learned by example, such as identifying with parents who are anxious. It can come from childhood conflict. It can arise from present-day situational problems. It can even stem from being anxious about anxiety itself. It can come from fears of inferiority, poverty, or poor health.”

Collins outlines five broad causes of anxiety: threats, conflicts, fear, unmet needs, and individual differences.

Threats

Collins describes anxiety-producing threats as “those which come from perceived danger, a threat to one’s self-worth, separation, and unconscious influences…” For example, anxiety may be caused by rejection or harassment from a peer, the possibility of parents divorcing, the prospect of flunking a course in school, or any number of real or perceived threats.

Conflicts

There are three kinds of conflicts that produce anxiety, according to Collins:

a. A conflict over the tendency to pursue two desirable but incompatible goals (such as choosing between a great summer job or going on a long-awaited family vacation), either of which would be pleasant. Making such a decision is often difficult and can be anxiety-inducing.

b. A desire both to do something and not to do it. For example, a person may grapple with ending a relationship that seems to be going nowhere. Breaking up might bring more freedom and opportunity, but it might also be a traumatic, hurtful experience for both partners. Making such a decision can involve considerable anxiety.

c. A situation where there are two alternatives, both of which may be unpleasant, such as enduring pain versus having an operation that might relieve the pain over time.

Fear

“Fear can arise in response to a variety of situations,” writes Collins. “Different people are afraid of failure, the future, achieving success, rejection, intimacy, conflicts, meaninglessness in life (sometimes called existential anxiety), sickness, death, loneliness, and a host of other real or imagined possibilities. Sometimes these fears can build up in one’s mind and create extreme anxiety, often in the absence of any real danger.”

Unmet Needs

“For many years, psychologists and other writers have tried to identify the basic needs of human beings,” writes Collins. He cites Cecilia Osborne’s conclusion that six needs are fundamental:

• Survival (the need for continued existence)
• Security (economic and emotional)
• Sex (as an expression of love; as a sexual being)
• Significance (to amount to something; to be worthwhile)
• Self-fulfillment (to achieve fulfilling goals)
• Selfhood (a sense of identity)

If these needs are not met, Osborne believes we become anxious, “up-in-the-air,” afraid, and often frustrated.

Individual Differences

“It is well known, of course, that people react differently to anxiety-producing situations,” writes Collins. “Some people are almost never anxious; some seem highly anxious most of the time; many are in between. Some people are made anxious by a variety of situations; others find that only one or two issues trigger anxiety. These differences may be due to the person’s psychology, personality, sociology, physiology, or theology.”

• Psychology: “Most behavior is learned as a result of personal experience or teaching by parents and other significant persons. When we have failed and must try again, when we have been hurt in the past, when others have demanded more than we could give, when we have seen anxiety in other people (e.g., the child who learns to be anxious in thunderstorms because his mother was always anxious)… all of these are psychological reactions that arouse anxiety.”
• Personality: “It may be that some people are more fearful or ‘high-strung’ than others. Some are more sensitive, self-centered, hostile, or insecure than others.”
• Sociology: “A past president of the American Psychological Association once suggested that the causes of anxiety rest in our society: political instability, mobility which disturbs our sense of rootedness, shifting values, changing moral standards and religious beliefs, and so on.”
• Physiology: “The presence of disease can stimulate anxiety, but so can dietary imbalance, neurological malfunctioning, and chemical factors within the body.”
• Theology: “Beliefs have a great bearing on one’s anxiety level. If God is seen as all-powerful, loving, good, and in ultimate control of the universe (which is the biblical teaching), then there can be trust and security even in the midst of turmoil… It should not be assumed, however, that non-believers are necessarily more anxious than believers. (Some Christians, for example, are so worried about pleasing God that their theology increases anxiety). Nor should it be concluded that anxiety is too complex for such simplistic explanations. Nevertheless, what we believe or do not believe does contribute to individual differences in the extent to which we experience anxiety.”

False Beliefs

Not only may a person’s beliefs contribute to the experience of anxiety; Dr. G. Keith Olson identifies specific false beliefs as a major cause of anxiety among youth. Many adolescents… believe one or more of the following false beliefs:

1. It is essential that I am loved and approved by virtually everyone in my community.
2. I must be perfectly competent, adequate, and achieving in order to consider myself worthwhile.
3. It is a terrible catastrophe when things are not as I want them to be.
4. Unhappiness is caused by outside circumstances, and I have no control over it.
5. Dangerous or fearsome things are causes for great concern, and I must continually dwell upon their possibilities.
6. It is easier to avoid certain difficulties and self-responsibilities than to face them.
7. I should be dependent on others, and I must have someone stronger on whom I can rely.
8. My past experiences and events are the determiners of my present behavior; I cannot eradicate or alter the influence of my past.
9. I should be quite upset over other people’s problems and disturbances.
10. There is always a right or perfect solution to every problem, and I must always find it, or the results will be catastrophic.

Parents and youth leaders may recognize such false beliefs as often characteristic of adolescents. Such beliefs can, of course, give rise to considerable anxiety.