Mission of the CAC

Among the best-known anxiety disorders are phobias, which occur in response to specific triggers. These include, for example, fear of spiders, fear of flying, or fear of heights. Another common specific anxiety disorder is social phobia, which is the fear of failing in social interaction with other people. The so-called agoraphobia is triggered by certain places and situations such as wide open spaces or crowds of people.
Symptoms range from slight discomfort to panic attacks with physical symptoms such as shortness of breath, palpitations, sweating, or trembling. Frequently, patients try to avoid the triggering situation.

When repeated panic attacks occur that are neither directed towards a specific situation or object nor can be influenced in any way, we use the term “panic disorder”. Such panic attacks hit suddenly and out of the blue for a few minutes, sometimes several times a day, without any recognizable trigger. Physical symptoms such as palpitations, sweating, trembling, or suffocation fears are often accompanied by feelings of numbness and dizziness, or even fear of death. Typically, patients develop a persistent fear of the next panic attack. The first panic attack often occurs in connection with a stressful experience, or as a result of chronic stress.

People who experience permanent tension, anxiety, and numerous fears in their daily life over a long period of time may suffer from a so-called generalized anxiety disorder. Anxious brooding and continued pondering over banal facts as well as fearful speculation impair their everyday lives, and often their sleep. For example, patients do not answer an unexpected telephone call in the first place for fear of bad news. A generalized anxiety disorder is hard to define precisely, and is often difficult to distinguish from an anxious personality structure. For this reason, patients with this form of anxiety disorder often do not receive treatment - despite the high level of suffering.