Anxiety and depression have become major issues in our 21st century American culture. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 56 million Americans, or approximately 25% of adults over the age of 18, suffer from anxiety or depression in a given year (http://www.nimh.nih.gov).
Please consider these important facts for a moment:
- Approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an Anxiety Disorder.
- Major Depressive Disorder affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year.
- Dysthymic disorder (a less severe depression) affects approximately 1.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. This figure translates to about 3.3 million American adults.
- Major Depressive Disorder is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15-44.
