Anxiety, Preoccupation, and Obsession Flashcards
Week 4
How is anxiety helpful?
- alerts us to potential danger
- prepares us to take action
- helps us to escape danger
- when existing in moderate amounts
How is anxiety harmful
- too much anxiety affects functioning
- leads to impaired performance
- purpose becomes useless
Explain the origins of anxiety:
evolved from
What is GAD?
- pervasive and excessive worries about a broad range of events
- difficult to control
- causes significant distress or impairment and affects daily life
- duration of 6 months or more
Symptoms of GAD:
- restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
- being easily fatigued
- difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
- irritability
- muscle tension
- sleep disturbance (difficulty falling/staying asleep or restless/unsatisfying sleep)
How many symptoms needed for a GAD diagnosis?
3-6 of 6 symptoms for the past 6 months
What kind of worries do people with GAD have?
Broad range of themes, from financial problems, to worrying about one’s or one’s loved one’s health.
3 Factors associated with GAD:
Biological, Learning, or Cognitive Factors.
Biological factors:
- inherited tendency to be tense and reactive
- highly sensitive nervous system
Learning factors:
- Early stressful experiences
- Modelling from other
- Learning that the world is dangerous and that you cannot cope
Cognitive Factors:
- Belief that worrying is helpful
- Difficulty tolerating uncertainty
- Cognitive avoidance - lost in mind, avoiding engaging with reality
- Attention - biased toward threatening information
Treatment of GAD:
Medication and psychotherapy.
Types of medication used to treat GAD, and description of each one:
- Benzodiazepenes
- short term relief
- significant side effects
- creates dependence
- Antidepressants
- safer long term
- fewer significant side effects
- not habit-forming
Types of psychotherapy used to treat GAD:
- CBT
- relaxation techniques
- challenge thoughts that perpetuate worry
- “worry time”
- Mindfulness
- breathing exercises
What is OCD?
Disorder characterized by recurrent obsessions and/or compulsions
What are obsessions?
Intrusive/unwanted and nonsensical thoughts, images, or urges that one tries to resist or eliminate.
What are compulsions?
Repetitive actions meant to suppress thoughts & provide relief.
How do obsessions and compulsions affect daily life?
- time-consuming, take up more than an hour a day and is recurring
- causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning
Origin/causes of OCD:
- Not due to a substance, medical conditions, or other psychological disorders.
- Genes: moderately heritable
- Brain/cognitive fucntion
- Early learning: taught that some thoughts are dangerous/unacceptable
What causes OCD in the brain?
- structural abnormalities in the caudate nucleus
- low serotonin strongly implicated
- attention drawn to disturbing material relevant to obsessive concerns
What does OCD affect?
- disrupts daily life (work, relationships, self-care)
- cause intense anxiety if rituals aren’t performed
- consumes significant time
- triggers avoidance of situations, places, or people
- lack of rational control over compulsions
Name some common obsessions in OCD:
aggressive, contamination, symmetry & exactness, somatic, hoarding & saving, religious, sexual, miscellaneous
What keeps OCD going?
