How are anxiety disorders diagnosed?

Anxiety disorders shouldn’t be self-diagnosed: It takes clinical experience to distinguish between normal and disordered anxiety. Diagnosing an anxiety disorder is done through a psychological evaluation performed by a clinician, after ruling out other symptom causes such as medication, drugs, or medical conditions.^[1] The psychological evaluation is typically based on diagnostic criteria set by a publication such as the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The symptoms in the APA’s diagnostic criteria for the most common anxiety disorders are summarized in What are the main signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders? The diagnosis can only be made if the symptoms can't be better explained by the effects of a medication or drug, by another medical condition, or by another mental disorder.