Have anxiety disorders been disowned by psychiatrists?

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this paper was to examine the place of anxiety disorders in contemporary psychiatry, its origins, and possible implications for the future of psychiatry.

CONCLUSIONS

Several factors have led psychiatry away from neuroses and anxiety disorders and towards depression as a social paradigm of distress: a perception that anxiety disorders have relatively little relevance, the decline of psychoanalysis and rise of biological psychiatry, the downfall of the benzodiazepines and a failure to replace them with better anxiolytics, and the development of newer antidepressants. The subsequent imposition of the rigid conceptual dichotomy between depression and anxiety strengthened a notion that the focus of psychiatry should be on the 'depression side' of this divide. Having promoted cognitive-behavioural therapy as the best treatment for anxiety disorders, clinical psychologists have largely 'taken over' the anxiety disorders from psychiatrists. It is suggested that psychiatrists' surrender of the anxiety disorders may have negative consequences for the future of psychiatry.