Chapter 5 (Anxiety) Flashcards
What distinguishes fear from anxiety
– Fear is a state of immediate alarm in
response to a serious, known threat to
one’s well-being
– Anxiety is a state of alarm in response to
a vague sense of threat or danger
– Both have the same physiological
features – increase in respiration,
perspiration, muscle tension, etc.
Psychological Causes of Anxiety
- Anxious behaviour starts in childhood
– Feeling of no control over environment
– Overprotective and overintrusive parents - Personality traits
– Anxiety sensitivity - Conditioning develops
Comorbidity with anxiety
- Major depression and anxiety disorders
most commonly comorbid - Additional diagnoses of depression,
alcohol, drug abuse make recovering
from anxiety difficult - ¾ of those with anxiety
disorder meet criteria for
another disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
– Uncontrollable, unproductive worrying
about everyday events
– Feeling impending catastrophe even after
successes
– Inability to stop the worry–anxiety cycle
-Women are diagnosed more
often than men by a 2:1 ratio
-Usually first appears in childhood
or adolescence
Treating Generalized Anxiety Disorder – Targeting
Psychological Factors
- Psychological methods
- Behavioral methods
Psychological methods aim to:
– Increase sense of control over
thoughts and worries
– More accurate view of likelihood
and dangerousness of perceived
threats
– Decrease muscle tension
Behavioral methods focus on:
– Breathing retraining
– Muscle relaxation training
– Reduce behaviors associated with
worry (e.g., checking or
reassurance-seeking)
Panic Disorder
Sensation of dying or of losing control,
panic attacks
Agoraphobia
fear and avoidance of
situations: unsafe and inescapable
How do phobias differ
from these “normal”
experiences
- More intense and persistent fear
- Greater desire to avoid the
feared object or situation - Distress that interferes with
functioning
Causes of phobias
- Traumatic experiences/traumatic conditioning
- Vicarious experience
- Panic attack
- Social and cultural factors
- Most reported specific phobias occur in
women
Understanding Social Phobia – Neurological Factors
- Amygdala is strongly activated when afraid and when shown faces
with negative expressions - Hippocampus and the cortical areas near the amygdala do not
function normally - Right hemisphere also appears to play a part
- Dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine may function abnormally
- The heritability of social phobia is 37% on average
– Children with shy temperament or behavioral inhibition
Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Child’s unrealistic and persistent worry
something will happen to parents or
other people important to child - Afraid to go to school; has nightmares
- 35% can extend into adulthood if not treated in childhood
adults with SAD may
experience
- relationship difficulties
- other anxiety disorders and
mental health problems - functional impairment in social
and personal life
Social Phobias
- Severe, persistent, and
unreasonable fears of social
or performance situations in
which embarrassment may
occur
Treating Social Phobia
- CBT :
- Identify irrational thoughts about social situations
- Develop more realistic thoughts and expectations
- Test predictions about the consequences of engaging in specific
behaviors - Exposure
- Cognitive-behavioral group therapy
- Self-help organizations for public speaking offer opportunities to
practice spontaneous and planned speeches
