A lot of anxiety advice focuses on managing symptoms. Breathe slowly, challenge the anxious thought, ground yourself in the present, download the app. These tools can genuinely help, and they have an important place in anxiety treatment. But if you’ve tried them and found that your anxiety keeps returning, you may start to wonder what else might be going on.
Anxiety is common. Anxiety disorders are the most common group of mental health conditions in Australia, affecting around one in four people at some stage of life. But understanding anxiety involves more than knowing how to manage the symptoms. It can also be useful to understand what contributes to your anxiety, how particular patterns developed, and what your anxiety might be connected to.
This is often what people mean when they search for the root causes of anxiety. There is rarely one single cause. Anxiety can develop through a combination of biological, psychological, relational, and environmental factors, and these can be different for each person.
Symptoms vs Root Causes: Why Looking Deeper Matters
Managing anxiety symptoms can be helpful. Breathing exercises, mindfulness, exercise, lifestyle changes and other strategies can make anxiety more manageable, particularly when you’re in the middle of it.
But sometimes anxiety persists despite these efforts. When that happens, it can be worth looking beyond the symptoms themselves and asking what might be contributing to the pattern.
This doesn’t mean abandoning symptom management. It means adding another layer of understanding. Rather than only asking how to make the anxiety stop, therapy can also explore why it keeps showing up, what tends to trigger it, and what may be maintaining it.
What Are the Main Causes of Anxiety?
There is no single cause of anxiety, and different factors can interact in different ways. Some of the factors that can contribute include:
- Genetics and family history: Anxiety tends to run in families, and research shows that genetic factors contribute to vulnerability to anxiety disorders. Recent large-scale genetic studies have identified numerous genetic variants associated with anxiety, while also highlighting the complexity of that relationship. Having a genetic predisposition does not mean that anxiety is inevitable.
- The body’s stress response: Anxiety involves the body’s threat-detection and stress-response systems. Some people may be more sensitive to perceived threat or more easily activated by stress.
- Stress and life circumstances: Ongoing work pressure, financial difficulties, relationship problems, health concerns, or major changes can all contribute to anxiety.
- Early experiences: Experiences in childhood can shape how we come to understand ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Research has found associations between adverse childhood experiences and anxiety in adulthood.
- Personality and temperament: Some people are naturally more sensitive to threat, uncertainty, responsibility, or criticism. Traits such as perfectionism can also contribute to anxiety for some people.
- Physical health and substances: Some medical conditions, including thyroid problems, and substances such as caffeine can cause or worsen anxiety. If anxiety has appeared suddenly or is accompanied by significant physical symptoms, it is worth speaking with your GP.
The useful question is often not simply, “What caused my anxiety?” but “What factors have contributed to my anxiety, and how do they fit together in my life?”
Looking Beyond the Surface: The Deeper Roots of Anxiety
The factors above can help explain how anxiety develops, but they don’t necessarily explain what it means in your particular life.
Sometimes anxiety is connected with experiences, emotions, or relationship patterns that aren’t immediately obvious. You might notice that you become particularly anxious when you feel criticised, rejected, uncertain, or responsible for other people’s wellbeing. You might find yourself repeatedly responding to situations in ways that you don’t fully understand.
Some areas that may be explored in therapy include:
- Early relationships: What it was like to grow up in your particular family, including what felt safe to need, express, or expect from others.
- Fear of rejection, conflict, or abandonment: Anxiety that becomes stronger in relationships, or that leads you to prioritise other people’s needs while losing sight of your own.
- Difficult emotions: Feelings such as anger, grief, hurt, or disappointment that may have been difficult to acknowledge or express.
- Past trauma: Experiences that have affected your sense of safety, trust, or predictability.
- Self-criticism and internal expectations: The standards and pressures that make it difficult to feel at ease or allow yourself to make mistakes.
- Repeating relationship patterns: Familiar ways of relating that can appear across different relationships and contribute to similar feelings or difficulties.
Exploring these patterns isn’t about finding one hidden explanation or blaming your history for how you feel now. It’s about developing a fuller understanding of your anxiety and noticing connections that may previously have been difficult to see.
Where trauma is part of the picture, this can be explored at a pace that feels manageable. You can read more about trauma therapy.
Why Does Anxiety Come Out of Nowhere?
One of the unsettling things about anxiety is when it seems to arrive without an obvious cause. You might experience a sudden wave of dread on an otherwise ordinary day, or notice a physical sensation of anxiety that seems to have appeared from nowhere.
Sometimes there is a straightforward explanation, such as accumulated stress, lack of sleep, caffeine, or a difficult situation. At other times, the trigger may be less obvious. A particular situation, interaction, memory, or feeling can sometimes activate anxiety without you immediately understanding why.
This doesn’t necessarily mean there is a single hidden cause waiting to be uncovered. Therapy can help you become more aware of the circumstances and patterns surrounding your anxiety, including things that may be difficult to notice when you’re in the middle of it.
What Causes Anxiety Attacks?
Anxiety and panic attacks can come on suddenly and intensely. Symptoms can include a pounding heart, breathlessness, dizziness, trembling, or a sense of unreality. The physical sensations themselves can be frightening, particularly when you don’t understand what is happening.
Panic attacks involve a strong activation of the body’s fear response, sometimes in response to a clear trigger and sometimes without an obvious one. After an attack, worrying about having another can also become part of the problem. You may start monitoring your body closely, avoiding particular situations, or changing your life to reduce the possibility of another attack.
Stress and other psychological factors can contribute to panic, but physical causes can also produce similar symptoms. If you’re experiencing frequent, severe, or unexplained attacks, it is worth speaking with your GP to discuss your symptoms and rule out medical causes.
How to Find the Root Cause of Your Anxiety
Finding the “root cause” of anxiety usually isn’t about uncovering one buried event or explanation. It’s about developing a fuller understanding of the patterns around your anxiety.
You might begin by asking yourself:
- When does my anxiety tend to appear? Are there particular situations, people, or circumstances that bring it on?
- When did it begin or become more intense? What else was happening in your life at the time?
- What feelings tend to accompany it? Is there anger, sadness, shame, fear, or another feeling that is difficult to recognise or express?
- What happens in my relationships? Does anxiety tend to emerge around particular patterns of closeness, conflict, rejection, or responsibility?
- What do I expect from myself? Are there standards or pressures that make it difficult to feel safe making mistakes or disappointing others?
Some of these connections can be difficult to recognise on your own. Psychodynamic therapy provides a space to explore them in more depth, including how patterns emerge within the therapeutic relationship itself.
My work involves psychodynamic therapy, which focuses on understanding the emotional and relational patterns that may contribute to psychological difficulties. This can sit alongside practical strategies for managing anxiety. The aim isn’t to choose between symptom management and deeper exploration, but to understand what is useful for you.
You can read more about my approach to anxiety treatment.
Getting Started with Alicia
I’m a registered psychologist offering psychodynamic therapy to adults across Australia via telehealth.
I offer a free 15-minute phone call to discuss what’s bringing you to therapy and whether my way of working might be a good fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can You Get Rid of Anxiety by Finding Its Root Cause?
Anxiety is a normal human response, so the aim isn’t necessarily to eliminate it altogether. Understanding the factors that contribute to your anxiety can help you recognise your patterns and respond to them differently.
Is Anxiety Genetic or Learned?
Both genetic and environmental factors can contribute to anxiety. Genetics can create a predisposition, while experiences, relationships, learned patterns, and current circumstances can also shape how anxiety develops.
When Should I See a Psychologist About Anxiety?
It may be worth speaking with a psychologist if anxiety is affecting your sleep, work, concentration, relationships, or ability to do things that matter to you. You don’t need to be in crisis or have a formal diagnosis before seeking support.
What’s the Difference Between Normal Worry and Anxiety?
Worry is a normal part of life. It becomes worth paying attention to when it is persistent, difficult to control, or starts affecting your sleep, relationships, work, or everyday life.
Can Anxiety Go Away on Its Own?
Sometimes anxiety related to a specific situation settles when the circumstances change. If anxiety is persistent or keeps returning, it may be worth exploring what is contributing to the pattern rather than simply waiting for it to pass.
If you’ve been managing the symptoms of anxiety for a while and want to understand what’s underneath, that’s exactly the kind of work I do. I offer a free 15-minute phone call to talk it through — no pressure, and no obligation to book.
