Welcome to
The Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma website
The Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma is a specialist treatment and research centre jointly run by the Specialist Director of the South London and Maudsley Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London).
During the summer months we can treat a limited number of people for severe spider phobia as part of our ongoing resesarch trial. If you are interested in participating in future research please contact lesley.anderson@kcl.ac.uk
General information on anxiety disorders and the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma:
Anxiety disorders are a group of problems characterised by fear and anxiety. The feeling of fear is usually accompanied by physical symptoms (such as heart racing, sweating, tense muscles and so on) and changes in behaviour often called avoidance behaviours. Although everyone experiences anxiety from time to time, anxiety becomes a disorder when the symptoms or avoidance behaviours interfere with the person's life and stop them doing things they want to do. Anxiety may focus on a range of different things which explains why we recognise a range of different anxiety disorders (see below). Opinions vary as to how common anxiety disorders are. It is generally accepted that around 16% of adults are suffering from an anxiety disorder at any one time. This means approximately one in six people. Anxiety disorders are more common in women than men although this varies between the different disorders listed below. Examples of anxiety disorders are Agoraphobia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Social Phobia.
The Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma was set up in 2000 and is a specialist unit which aims to:
- Provide and develop evidence-based cognitive-behavioural treatments to people suffering from anxiety disorders
- Continuously audit and refine the treatments, and
- To disseminate specialist skills in cognitive behaviour therapy for anxiety disorders to other clinicians within the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.
At the Centre we treat people who suffer from a number of anxiety disorders - body dysmorphic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, panic disorder with agoraphobia, post traumatic stress disorder, social phobia and specific phobias. Treatment is often linked to research projects to try to find out and understand more about each problem and how best to treat them.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) consists of a preoccupation with one or more defects in one's appearance for which most people either hardly notice or do not believe to be important. It must also either cause significant distress or handicap. Individuals usually feel compelled to repeat frequently time consuming behaviours such as checking their appearance in a mirror and avoid situations that are anxiety provoking.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: In obsessive compulsive disorder people are troubled by intrusive thoughts, images, impusles or doubts. Usually these are also accompanied by compulsions where the person has to either do or think something to check or "fix" something which they fear might happen usually because of what they thought.
Panic Disorder: Panic disorder is of course characterised
by panic attacks. In a panic attack the person experiences a sudden increase
in anxiety as well as a surge in physical sensations, such as palpitations,
dizziness, hot flushes and so on. These panic attacks initially come on "out
of the blue" although later they may increasingly be triggered by situations
where the person has previously experienced a panic attack. People who experience
frequent panic attacks can begin to avoid situations and if this avoidance
becomes more severe then agoraphobia (panic disorder with agoraphobia)
occurs as a consequence. It is important to note that panic attacks occur
in almost all anxiety disorders and also occur in other psychological problems
such as depression. An occasional panic attack (normal panic) occurs in almost
everyone in the population.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
occurs in people who have experienced some kind of horrific event (trauma)
or series of events. After the occurrence of the trauma (sometimes much later)
the person experiences changes in their psychological state including "flashbacks,"
(re-experiencing of images or feelings which occurred at the time of trauma)
physical sensations and nightmares, "feeling out of contact" with
their life and other symptoms.
Social Phobia: Social phobia is characterised by a fear of doing things in front of other people and making a fool of oneself. Often avoidance behaviour also increases so the person increasingly withdraws from social situations.
Specific Phobia: Specific phobias are problems where the
anxiety is focussed on a particular object, for example spiders, small animals,
enclosed spaces, seeing other people vomitting and so on. In most people who
suffer from specific phobias the extent to which they are impaired is relatively
slight. However, in some cases, specific phobias can become completely disabling.
The Centre is run under the expert direction of Professor David Clark, Professor Anke Ehlers and Professor Paul Salkovskis. All three professors moved from the University of Oxford in 2000 to set up the Centre.
Whether you suffer with an anxiety disorder yourself or you know someone who does, or you work in this field, we hope the information on our website will be helpful. Please click on one of the links below to find out more about anxiety disorders and how they can be treated.
Do you suffer with an anxiety disorder?
Do you treat service users with anxiety disorders?
We would very much appreciate your feedback on the layout and contents of this site so that we can make it as useful as possible. Please e-mail l.anderson@iop.kcl.ac.uk with any comments or feedback.