Anxiety Disorders

Question 1

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Answer 1

Emotional-cognitive symptoms:
- worrying
- anxious feelings / thoughts, sometimes w/ no attachment to any subject
Physical symptoms:
- autonomic arousal
- tension; restlessness; insomnia
- nausia

Question 2

Panic Disorder

Answer 2

Repeated / unexpected panic attacks, as well as a fear of the next attack, and a change in behavior to avoid panic attacks

Question 3

What constitutes a panic attack?

Answer 3

Panic attack includes:

• minutes of intense dread / fright
• chest pains, choking, numbness; very similar to heart attack
• feeling of a need to escape

Question 4

Specific Phobia

Answer 4

Uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid the same object or situation; even an image triggers the reaction
eg. agoraphobia: fear of panic attack; social phobia: fear of being watched / judged

Question 5

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Answer 5

Obsessions are intense, unwanted worries, ideas, and images that repeatedly pop up in mind
Compulsion is a repeatedly, illogically strong feeling of needing to carry out an action
Common pattern: Rechecking things

Question 6

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Answer 6

• Repeated intrusive recall of burned-in memories
• Nightmares
• Social withdrawal / phobic avoidance
• Jumpy anxiety / hypervigilance
• Insomnia

Question 7

Which people are more likely to get PTSD?

Answer 7

Those with:

• less control on situations
• likelihood to get re/traumatized
• brain differences
• less resiliency

Question 8

How should a person recover from PTSD?

Answer 8

Not overwhelming self w/ stress
Finding strengths w/in self
Finding connections / hope w/ others
Seeing the trauma as a challenge to be overcome

Question 9

How would classical conditioning of an anxiety affect the anxiety?

Answer 9

Overgeneralizing a conditioned response from classical conditioning creates a general feel of anxiety when anything relating to the conditioned stimulus is present
eg. Little Albert and rabbits (fluffy)

Question 10

How does operant conditioning of an anxiety affect the anxiety?

Answer 10

When we avoid an anxious decision, we’re rewarded with relief, reinforcing our anxious avoidance; this further increases anxious thoughts / behaviors

Question 11

What role does observational learning play in anxiety?

Answer 11

If you see someone avoiding / fearing a stimulus, you may adopt that fear even though the original scared person is not around

Question 12

How does cognition relate to anxiety?

Answer 12

Cognition includes worried thoughts, as well as interpretations, appraisals, beliefs, predictions, and ruminations; it also includes mental habits often included in PTSD

Question 13

Examples of Hypervigilance

Answer 13

• Cognitive Error: belief that we can predict a bad event
• Irrational Beliefs
• Mistaken Appraisals: making incorrect associations btwn objects and anxiety stimuli
• Misinterpretations

Question 14

How do genetics tie in with Anxiety?

Answer 14

Some genes code for innate phobias
- some ppl are born w/ temperaments
Ppl w/ anxiety have a problem w/ a gene associated w/ serotonin / glutamate

Question 15

Serotonin

Answer 15

Neurotransmitter involved in regulating sleep and mood

Ppl w/ anxiety have a problem w/ a gene that regulates the level of serotonin in the body

Question 16

Glutamate

Answer 16

Excitatory neurotransmitter involved in the brain’s alarm centers
Ppl w/ anxiety have a problem w/ a gene that regulates the level of glutamate in the body

Question 17

What happens to the brain during anxious moments?

Answer 17

Traumatic experiences burn fear circuits into the amygdala
Anxiety disorders include overarousal of brain areas involved in impulse control / habitual behavior
eg. OCD shows extra activity in anterior cingulate cortex, which monitors actions/ checks errors