Anxiety Disorders

Question 1

What is GAD?

Answer 1

Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more days than not for at least
6 months, about a number of themes (such as work or school performance).

Question 2

What characterises a panic disorder? (what is it, physiological symptoms, cognitive)

Answer 2

What: Sudden episodes of extreme anxiety/distress
Physiological symptoms: Palpitations, dizziness, chest pain.
Cognitive: very catastrophic cognitive thoughts e.g. fears of dying.

Question 3

How long do panic attacks last for?

Answer 3

5-10 minutes

Question 4

What is social phobia?

Answer 4

Fear of negative evaluation

Question 5

Coping mechanism in social phobia?

Answer 5

Avoidant behaviour

Question 6

Distinguish obsessions and compulsions in OCD?

Answer 6

Obsessions are repetitive thoughts, compulsions are repetitive behaviours.

Obsessions: intrusive, repetitive and persistent thoughts. E.g. urge that I’m going to swear in public again

Compulsions: Excessive and repetitive ritualistic behaviour that you feel you must perform, or something bad will happen e.g. washing over and over again, in response to the obsession that bacteria will get inside my skin. e.g. checking door locks.

Question 7

The purpose of compulsions in OCD?

Answer 7

To minimise anxiety of obsessions.

Question 8

Symptoms in PTSD (arousal level and cognitive)

Answer 8

Arousal level: Heightened arousal, hypervigilant

Cognitive: traumatic event is persistently re-experienced through intrusive thoughts/flashbacks/nightmares

Question 9

What is a separation anxiety disorder?

Answer 9

Unusually strong fear or anxiety to separating from people they feel a strong attachment to.

Question 10

Can separation anxiety disorder in kids be applied to adults?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

Separation anxiety disorder in kids will (e.g.)

Answer 11

Avoid sleepovers, playdates etc.

Question 12

Most common fear in panic attacks?

Answer 12

Is the fear of losing control

Question 13

…. % of panic attacks occur for no apparent reason

Answer 13

60

Question 14

What makes exposure therapy easier for people with agoraphobia?

Answer 14

being accompanied by someone, being close to home, being in familiar territory, shorter durations (e.g. 5 min bus trip as opposed to 20 mins).

Question 15

% in PTSD

1) intrusive thoughts
2) numbing feeling and sleep disturbance
3) depression

Answer 15

1) 100%
2) 44%
3) 67%

Question 16

Ratio of anxiety from females to males.

Answer 16

2:1

Except in OCD where its equal gender distributions.

Question 17

…% of people had anxiety disorder over a 12 month period

Answer 17

14%

Question 18

About …% who had GAD met criteria for another disorder

and about …% who had social phobia met criteria for another disorder.

Answer 18

70%, 80%

Question 19

Age of onset for OCD is

Age of onset for PTSD is

Answer 19

late adolescence e.g. 19

early twenties e.g. 23

Question 20

Remission means

Answer 20

loss of symptoms or reduced severity of symptoms temporarily

Question 21

… disorders are chronic because even after … years, people still meet criteria for social phobia.

Answer 21

anxiety, eight years

Question 22

Bad or good?
Remission is …
Relapse is …

Answer 22

remission is good, relapse baddd

Question 23

… disorder has a higher remission than others

Answer 23

Panic

Question 24

Best treatment for anxiety disorders?

Answer 24

CBT e.g. target thoughts about themselves e.g. they may think they are boring.

Question 25

What are the safety behaviours of someone with anxiety?

Answer 25

Safety behaviours: looking down, speaking softly, rehearsing what they are saying beforehand→actually often contributes to a cycle of anxiety.

Question 26

Anxiety characterised by fear of

Answer 26

negative evaluation

Question 27

… - … % of variance in anxious symptoms being heritable

Answer 27

30-40% of variance in anxious symptoms being heritable

Question 28

4 Parts of brain involved in anxiety

Answer 28

amygdala: emotional/fear processing –>reactivity higher for ppl with anxiety. Involved in fear conditioning. Memory for emotional stimuli.
hippocampus: memory system and emotion, link btn stress and context.

prefrontal cortex: anticipation of threat, cognitive assessment/appraisal of threat, involved in higher order functioning, memory for context and retrieval

Brain stem: Raffai nuclei (produces serotonin) and locus serillus (nora adrenaline producer).

Question 29

What neurochemical is particularly responsible for episodic part of anxiety ie. panic attacks?

Answer 29

Noradrenaline (that sudden rush of fair) noradrenaline is released. Linked to heart rate and respiration.

Question 30

What role does serotonin play in anxiety?

Answer 30

The gradual modulating increase or decrease in anxiety

Question 31

Can one’s temperament predict anxiety later in life?

Answer 31

Yes at 3 months can identify which children are of greater risk of developing anxiety later on. Children very withdrawn, or very inhibited. They don’t make a lot of eye contact, don’t approach stranger, hold on to mother.

Question 32

Can parent style predict anxiety for child?

Answer 32

Yes overprotective parenting can predict anxiety.

Question 33

What is the information processing theory?

Answer 33

The theory that people are anxious because of their attentional bias towards threat. DIFFERENCES IN ATTENTION, INTERPRETATION AND MEMORY. e.g1) they interpret ambiguous things in threatening ways. e.g2) they remember threatening things more than others (mixed evidence for memory tho).

Question 34

Mum has anxiety, I or a first degree relative are … - … times more likely to have anxiety

Answer 34

4-6 times

Question 35

What is Benzodiazepine?

Answer 35

Its a biochemical that facilitates the binding of GABA molecules to GABA receptors.

Question 36

What does GABA stand for? And what does it do?

Answer 36

Gamma Aminobutryic Acid (GABA) – inhibits emotions particularly anxiety
e.g. when rats are stressed, no. of Benzodiazepine receptors increase by 20% as a response (because more anxiety inhibition is needed).

Question 37

What does HPA stand for? What does this system do?

Answer 37

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) is responsible for arousal in response to stress, bref: fight or flight/ general stress system. Cortisol very relevant here. Early experiences may modulate later HPA responsiveness.

Question 38

What do learning theories of anxiety suggest? (conditioned learning)

Answer 38

That the occurrence of an aversive event together with specific stimuli leads to fear. e.g. little Albert and the white rabbits.

Question 39

What 5 problems are there with conditional learning theories of anxiety?

Answer 39

1) It attempts to produce long-lasting fears in lab. unsuccessful. This could never be REPLICATED.
2) Many aversive experiences do not result in phobias (e.g., Air-raids)
3) People with phobias do not usually recall “conditioning”. Dont recall traumatic/negative event.
4) Phobias do not extinguish easily
5) Phobias occur to a limited set of stimuli (no equipotentiality) –> any given stimulus should have same potential to be a phobia e.g chair and snake but yet phobias occur to a limited finite set of stimuli which does not fit with conditioning theory

Question 40

What is the preparedness theory of phobias?

Answer 40

Some stimuli in world are biologically prepared because of their evolutionary significance (still a conditioning theory but it only occurs for prepared stimuli)

Question 41

What is a prepared stimulus?

3 characteristics

Answer 41

1) Fear is acquired in a single learning trial
2) The fear is non-cognitive ie. can’t talk yourself out of it logically
3) The fear is resistant to extinction

Question 42

What are three KEY risk factors for anxiety!!?!

Answer 42

1) Temperament (shyness/withdrawal or behavioural inhibition).
2) Parenting (overprotection or modelling)
3) Life events