Anxiety, depression and self-harm Flashcards
What is the brain for?
Organise sensory input
Make sense of sensory + social information (Predictive models)
Motivate survival (avoid harm - physical, social)
Maximise efficiency
What is compulsion and list disorders related to it?
The experience of overwhelming urges to repeat a behaviour, even in the knowledge that it is harmful. It is present in numerous disorders.
Examples: Anxiety, depression, self-harm, addiction, OCD, eating disorder
What can anxiety be conceptualised as?
Self-perpetuating network of positive feedback loops, arising from normally adaptive responses.
(Also depression)
List the core symptoms of depression.
Low mood
Low energy
Anhedonia (lack of positive experiences)
These 3 symptoms can feed into each other → Positive feedback loop
List some depressogenic stressors.
Abuse, loss, bullying, chronic illness
Can lead to prolonged stress.
Briefly explain what low self-worth is.
Adjusted your perception of your place in the world. You start to expect bad things will happen to you because bad things have happened to you. → Cognitive Bias - Changes the way you perceive things around you.
What other things can be seen in people with depression?
Poor sleep; social withdrawal and isolation → Hopelessness
Suicide - people start feeling like that there is nothing good in their life.
Give examples of non-suicidal self-injury.
Burning, skin-picking, pinching, ingesting objects, cutting, scratching, hitting, hair-pulling, poisoning.
Give some reasons why someone might self-harm.
I hate myself
I deserve to be punished.
I am afraid of punishment I can’t control (if something bad was going to happen to her she might as well do it herself - idea of control over her punishment) - Punishment has been dealed out to herself preventing external forces from doing it.
Briefly explain why patients self-harm.
Self-harm → Feel safer ( in control of punishment); Temporary relief from anxiety. Release of endogenous compounds (enkephalin, opioids → Reward pathway → Happy while self-harming).
Self-injury rapidly became compulsive → Something that gets out of control.
Self-harm typically occurs in the context of low self-worth and persistent distress - it serves various functions, mainly related to reducing this distress (makes them feel less awful)
List some examples of distress-reducing behaviour giving patients temporary relief.
Self-harm
Substance use
Disordered eating
Compulsive rituals
(Temporary relief > Negative reinforcement leading to an urge)
What is an urge?
There’s only 1 thing that reduces your distress hence highly urged to do that 1 thing.
Why does a compulsion occur?
Compulsion happens due to repetition of carrying out urge → Habit formation (very useful making it is easier for brain to accomplish other things; but ANYTHING can become a habit). → Leads to person having less and less control over their compulsion (in this case self-harm)
Which part of the brain controls urges and compulsions and reward?
Limbic Lobe
