Anxiety disorders manifest themselves in a very variable way, ranging from panic attacks to a very specific phobia, including generalized and almost constant anxiety, which is not justified by any particular event.

In France, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) lists six clinical entities² (European classification ICD-10) among anxiety disorders:

• generalized anxiety disorder
• panic disorder with or without agoraphobia,
• social anxiety disorder,
• specific phobia (e.g. phobia of heights or spiders),
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• post-traumatic stress disorder.

The most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-V, published in 2014, widely used in North America, proposes to categorize the various anxiety disorders as follows³ :

• anxiety disorders,
• obsessive-compulsive disorder and other related disorders
• disorders associated with stress and trauma

Each of these categories includes about ten “sub-groups”. Thus, among the “anxiety disorders”, we find, among others: agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, selective mutism, social phobia, anxiety induced by medication or drugs, phobias, etc.