Ch. 4 - Anxiety Disorders

Question 1

What is the difference between anxiety and fear?

Answer 1

anxiety - vague sense of threat or danger
fear - serious threat to one’s own being in the present

Question 2

Define generalized anxiety disorder.

Answer 2

excessive anxiety under most circumstances and worry about anything; free-floating anxiety

Question 3

What symptoms are included in GAD?

Answer 3

• 6 mths or more
• edginess, fatigue, poor concentration, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep problems
• sig. distress or impairment

Question 4

What was Freud’s belief regarding anxiety?

Answer 4

• all children experience some form of anxiety and use ego mechanisms to control this
• GAD occurs with high anxiety levels or inadequate defense mechanisms

Question 5

What are today’s psychodymanic theorists’ thoughts regarding GAD?

Answer 5

• most disagree with freud (duh)
• agree that GAD can be traced back to early child-parents relationships
• psychodynamic explanations: defense mechanisms, repressed memories, overprotectiveness, and harsh punishments

Question 6

Explain the specific treatments for GAD within psychodynamic therapies.

Answer 6

• freudians focus on less fear and more control of id
• object relations therapists attempts to help patients identify and settle early relationship problems
• short-term therapy is more effective than longer treatments

Question 7

What were early approaches within the cognitive-behavioral perspective in GAD?

Answer 7

• maladaptive or basic irrational assumptions: Ellis
• silent assumptions: Beck

Question 8

Explain metacognitive theory.

Answer 8

• meta-worries
• people with GAD hold both positive and negative beliefs about worrying

Question 9

Explain the intolerance of uncertainty theory.

Answer 9

• individuals can not tolerate knowledge that negative events may occur even if there is a small chance of it actually occurring

Question 10

Explain the avoidance theory.

Answer 10

• Borkovec
• people with this disorder have greater bodily arousal than others and that worrying will actually reduce this arousal by distracting the individuals from their unpleasant physical feelings
• supported by multiple studies

Question 10

Explain rational-emotive therapy.

Answer 10

• Ellis’ technique
• points out the irrational assumptions help by client and suggest more appropriate assumptions and assign homework for the client to practice

Question 11

Explain mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Answer 11

therapists try to help clients become aware of their streams of thoughts as mere events of the mind and accepting their worries rather than eliminate them

Question 12

What is the biological explanation for GAD?

Answer 12

• benzodiazepines
• GABA carries inhibitory message that ends firing of neuron receptor
• low GABA could help produce excessive brain circuit of communication -> GAD development

Question 13

Define a phobia.

Answer 13

a persistent and unreasonable fear of an object, activity, or situation

Question 14

What are the two categories of a phobia?

Answer 14

specific phobias and agoraphobia

Question 15

Explain agoraphobia.

Answer 15

being afraid of public places or situations in which escape might be difficult or help is unavailable

Question 16

What do cognitive-behaviorists believe how fears are learned?

Answer 16

• classical conditioning
• modeling

Question 17

What is the behavioral-evolutionary explanation for phobias?

Answer 17

• preparedness - predisposition to develop fear

Question 18

Explain systemic desensitization.

Answer 18

• Wolpe
• exposure tech. where the patient learns to relax while gradually facing the objects or situations they fear
• relation training, fear hierarchy, vivo desensitization, covert desensitization

Question 19

Explain flooding.

Answer 19

exposure technique in which the therapist force the patient to face their feared objects/situation without relation training and w/out gradual buildup

Question 20

Explain modeling.

Answer 20

the therapist acts as a model to demonstrate that the patient’s fear is groundless

Question 21

What is social anxiety disorder?

Answer 21

• severe, persistent and irrational anxiety about social or performance situations

Question 22

What are panic attacks?

Answer 22

• periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes and gradually pass

Question 23

Explain obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Answer 23

obsessions or compulsions feel excessive or unreasonable, cause great distress, take up time, or cause dysfunction

Question 24

Explain the psychodynamic perspective in OCD.

Answer 24

• battle between the id and the ego defense mechanisms lessens anxiety in overt thoughts and actions
• Freud: OCD related to the anal stage of development
• not all psychodynamics theorists agree