Anxiety can’t be diagnosed from a symptom checklist alone. Every new patient at Mental Health First starts with a full psychiatric evaluation, not a five minute intake form. Our providers review your symptom history in detail: when the worry started, what makes it worse, and how it’s affecting your sleep, work, and relationships.
We also check your medical history and current medications. Conditions like thyroid dysfunction and heart arrhythmias can produce anxiety like symptoms, and certain medications can trigger or worsen anxiety as a side effect. Ruling these out matters, since therapy or medication won’t help if the real cause is medical.
Once physical causes are ruled out, we assess your symptoms against DSM 5 criteria to identify which anxiety disorder best explains what you’re experiencing. Anxiety often overlaps with depression, insomnia, or ADHD, so we screen for those too.
The result is a diagnosis specific to you, and a treatment plan built on that diagnosis, not a generic protocol.
