Psychological perspective

Over the past few decades, the progress of research into the etiology and treatment of anxiety disorders has been immense. Anxiety disorders are without doubt one of the most extensively studied groups of mental disorders, and systematic research has revealed important processes that contribute to their development and maintenance. This chapter focuses on the future directions, and highlights a number of problems and current developments. Researchers have started to systematically investigate transdiagnostic cognitive and behavioral processes that are involved in the maintenance of emotional disorders across diagnostic categories. Decades of treatment research have shown that anxiety disorders can be treated effectively, with high effect sizes and stable long-term effects. Although CBT is currently the most effective psychological treatment for anxiety disorders, there is considerable room for improvement. Therefore, there is a clear need to figure out how these treatments work and what accounts for the variability in outcomes.