Chapter 2 - Anxiety disorders Flashcards
Fight or flight response
Physiological changes in the human body that occur in response to a percieved threat, including elevated heart rate, metabolism, blood pressure, breathing and muscle tension; these changes prepare the body for resisting or fleeing from the source of threat.
Negative reinforcement
Increasing the frequency of a behaviour (e.g., escape or avoidance) through the removal of an aversive experience (e.g., anxiety).
Autonomic nervous system
Part of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary functions such as heart rate, digestion, respiration rate and perspiration; includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
Specific phobia
Anxiety disorder characterised by extreme fear of a specific object or situation, which results in the individual avoiding the object or situation.
Prepared classical conditioning
Theory that evolution has prepared people to be easily conditioned to fear objects or situations that were dangerous in prehistoric times.
Exposure therapy
Behavioural technique in which the client confronts the feared stimuli that s/he has avoided until his/her anxiety reduces; there are various types of exposure such as in vivo versus imaginal.
In vivo exposure
Technique of behaviour therapy in which clients confront their feared objects/situations in real life (as opposed to imaginal exposure).
Flooding
Behavioural technique in which the client is intensively exposed to a feared object until his/her anxiety diminishes.
Extinction
In learning theory, elimination of a classically conditioned response by removal of the unconditioned stimulus or the elimination of an operantly conditioned response by removal of the reinforcement.
Habituation
Lessening of an organism’s response with repitition of the stimulus.
Inhibitory learning
Learning that occures when new associations between conditionedstimuli (CS) and unconditioned stimuli (US) are developed during exposure therapy. The original associations between the CS and US are not erased.
Self-efficacy
Person’s belief the s/he has the ability to succeed in a specific situation.
Agoraphobia
Anxiety disorder characterised by a fear of situations in which it would be difficult to escape or in which help may not be readily available (such as enclosed places and crowds) in the event of experiencing panic symptoms.
Panic attack
Episode during which an individual experiences a rapid increase in the physiological and cognitive symptoms of intense fear and discomfort.
Panic disorder
Anxiety disorder characterised by recurrent, unexpected panic attacks.
Neuroticism
Personality trait entailing a tendency to experience negative emotional states.
Anxiety sensitivity
Belief that the bodily symptoms of anxiety have harmful consequences.
Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs)
Class of antidepressant drugs such as imipramine and amitriptyline.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Class of antidepressant drugs (such as fluoxetine) that inhibit the reuptake of serotonin.
Benzodiazepines
Drugs (such as Valium and Xanax) that reduce anxiety and insomnia.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)
Type of psychological treatment that combines both cognitive and behavioural concepts and techniques.
Interoceptive exposure
behavioural technique that entails exposing the individual to the physical sensations of a panic attack.
Social anxiety disorder (social phobia)
Anxiety disorder characterised by an extreme fear of being judged or embarrassed in front of others, causing the individual to avoid social situations.
Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)
Anxiety disorder characterised by chronic worry in daily life accompanied by physical symptoms of tension.
Meta-beliefs
Beliefs about one’s own beliefs and those of others.
Azapirones
Class of drugs (such as buspirone) that may be used in the treatment of generalised anxiety disorder.
Wait-list control group
In treatment outcome study, group of participants that functions as a no-treatment control group while the experimental group receives the intervention.
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT)
Short-term psychological treatment originally dveloped by Gerald Klerman, Myrna Weissman and their collegues for the treatment of derpession; addresses the client’s interpersonal problems as a way of improving his/her psychological symptoms.
