Anxiety Disorders Flashcards
Characteristics of Anxiety
Feeling threatened by the potential of a negative event
Fear
Triggers fight or flight response
Panic
Most common emotion felt in anxiety
Fear
Most common emotional state of anxiety
Panic
Gender differences in Anxiety
More common in women
Normal Anxiety vs. Abnormal Anxiety
- More intense
- Lasts longer (Months)
- Feeling of powerlessness
- Interference with daily functioning
4 Daily functioning impacted by anxiety
Sleep patterns
Work life
Daily activities
Relationships
Biological causes of Anxiety
30-40% heritability (weak to moderate)
Non-specific genetic risk
Neural fear circuit
Neurotransmitter system involvement
Neural fear circuit
Thalamus-Amygdala- hypothalamus- mid-brain- brain stem-Spinal cord
Neurotransmitter systems involved in anxiety
GABA: Most important in anxiety, inhibitory function in brain
Serotonin: general arousal regulatory functions in CNS
What do many anti-anxiety meds target
Neurotransmitter systems
Behavioural Factors
2 factor model
Fears developed by vicarious learning/modeling
2 Factor model
- Fears acquired through classical conditioning
2. Maintained by operant conditioning
Cognitive Factors
Core values
Information processing
Automatic thoughts
Core values that cause anxiety
Helplessness
Vulnerability
Interpersonal Factors
Cognitive styles via improper parenting
Anxious-ambivalent attachment
What attachment style predicts anxiety problems
Anxious-Ambivalent attachment
What is Anxious-Ambivalent attachment style?
Avoidant to get attached but clingy when attached
Types of Anxiety Disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder Panic Disorder Agoraphobia Specific Phobia Social Anxiety Disorder
Panic Disorder
Unexpected, recurrent panic (overwhelming anxiety) attacks
Agoraphobia
Avoidance of situations, not easy to escape
Fear of going out to public places
Who is a primary candidate for diagnosis of panic disorder
Whose panic attacks are not cued by a particular situation
Theories about Panic Disorder
Cognitive Theory
Anxiety Sensitivity
Alarm Theory
Cognitive Theory of Panic Disorders
Misunderstanding of bodily sensations to be more severe than they really are
Alarm Theory
False Alarm
Fight/Flight set off by emotional cue
Specific Phobia
Persistent fear and avoidance of a specific situation or object
What is needed to be diagnosed with specific phobia
Fear interferes with functioning and is considered excessive
Can classical conditioning explain all phobias
No
Equipotentiality
All stimuli have equal potential to become a phobia
Is equipotentiality a proper premise for specific phobia
No, we usually don’t fear chairs
Nonassociative model
Some fears are evolutionary
spiders,water, heights
Biological preparedness
Combines associative and Nonassociative models
Biological predisposition make it easier to condition a phobia
Social Anxiety Disorder
Intense fear and avoidance of social/performance situations worry about scrutiny and negative evaluation
Types of Social Anxiety Disorder
Non-generalized (Performance-based)
Generalized (Social Anxiety)
When is anxiety normal?
Is small and infrequent
When is anxiety abnormal
There is excessive apprehension and worry
Components of Anxiety
Physiological
Cognitive
Behavioural
Physiological component of anxiety
Changes in autonomous nervous system
Breathing
Heart Rate
Muscle tone
Cognitive component of anxiety
Changes in Attention
Thoughts