Bio-Psycho-Socio-Spiritual Assessment

Anxiety disorders are often misdiagnosed or overlooked despite high rates of prevalence. The basic commonality in all anxiety disorders is anxious apprehension, a future-oriented condition in where the individual prepares to cope with upcoming negative events (source). High levels of negative affect, chronic over-arousal and a feeling of uncontrollability, which can lead to avoidant behaviors, accompany the condition of anxious apprehension in anxiety disorders (source). The bio-psycho-social-spiritual assessment should begin exploration of presenting symptoms during assessment should start with a detailed inquiry about what the client is experiencing cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally. The inquiry will also provide the client’s level …show more content…
A significant question is whether the anxiety is in response to a real threat, a past trauma, or a perceived threat. Youth in foster care have a high probability of both past and current trauma and assessing for trauma exposure must be sensitive yet thorough. Assessment must also be sensitive to cultural differences of the expression of anxiety, which in some cases can lead to greater emphasis on somatic and cognitive symptoms (source). Asian and Latino cultures tend to have more somatic symptoms, as expression of emotions is more likely to be discouraged in these cultures (source). During assessment it is also important to assess for any other mental health disorders, as foster youth are at a high risk for co-occurring disorders due to childhood maltreatment and exposure to other adverse stressors in early …show more content…
Psychoeducation includes explaining the three aspects of anxiety to be addressed in treatment: physiological reactions, exposure modeling, and cognitive restructuring (source). A physiological reaction common in anxiety disorders in adolescence is insomnia (source). Clients with insomnia will be taught deep breathing and muscle relaxation techniques to gain control of the physiological reaction of not being able to fall asleep. Exposure brings the client into contact with the feared stimuli, usually in a systematic gradual controlled way (source). It can be done through images, through simulations, or in vivo. The client learns to gain control over the feared stimuli and the reactions to it (source). The next component is cognitive restructuring where the client learns to identify anxiety-provoking thoughts and challenges those thoughts with coping focused thinking and action plans (source). The negative self-talk or thoughts that increase anxiety is identified and clients are taught the skills to say or think more positive statements to themselves. Cognitive restructuring also includes decreasing the amount of attention paid to threatening stimuli