Chapter 5: Anxiety Disorders

Question 1

Anxiety

Answer 1

The central nervous system’s physiological and emotional response to a vague sense of threat or danger

Question 2

Anxiety and the role of the Sympathetic Nervous System

Answer 2

An overactive sympathetic nervous system leads to anxiety. As long as there is a perceived threat, the gas pedal stays pressed down, releasing cortisol to keep the body revved, a feeling often called on edge, or anxious

Question 3

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Answer 3

A disorder marked by persistent and excessive feelings of anxiety and worry about numerous events and activities

Question 4

GAD & the Sociocultural Perpective

Answer 4

Interpretations: societal dangers, economic stress, or related racial and cultural pressures may create a climate in which cases of generalized anxiety disorder are more likely to develop

Treatments: ________

Question 5

GAD & Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud)

Answer 5

Interpretations: may develop when anxiety is excessive and defense mechanisms break down and function poorly

Treatments: therapists use free association, interpretation, and related psychodynamic techniques to help people overcome this problem

Question 6

GAD & Humanistic Perspective (Carl Rogers)

Answer 6

Interpretations: believed that people with GAD fail to receive unconditional positive regard from significant others during their childhood and so become overly critical of themselves

Treatments: treated individuals with client-centered therapy (clinicians try to help clients by being accepting, empathizing accurately, and conveying genuineness, A.K.A. person-centered therapy)

Question 7

GAD & Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective

Answer 7

Interpretations: believed that GAD is caused by various maladaptive assumptions and/or inaccurate beliefs about the power and value of worrying

Treatments: help clients change their maladaptive thinking and/or dysfunctional uses of worrying = rational-emotive therapy

Question 8

GAD & Biological Perspective

Answer 8

Interpretations: hold that GAD results from a hyperactive fear circuit - a brain circuit consisting of several brain structures (prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and amygdala).

Treatments: treat with drugs, antidepressant drugs, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotic drugs

Question 9

Phobia

Answer 9

A persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation

Question 10

Specific Phobias

Answer 10

A severe and persistent fear of a specific object or situation

Question 11

Agoraphobia

Answer 11

An anxiety disorder in which a person is afraid to be in public situations from which escape might be difficult or help unavailable if panic-like or embarrassing symptoms were to occur

Question 12

Panic Disorder & Biological Perspective

Answer 12

Interpretations: believe that it is caused by a hyperactive panic circuit, a brain circuit that includes structures such as the amygdala, hippocampus, ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, central gray matter, and locus coeruleus.

Treatments: use certain antidepressant drugs or benzodiazepines

Question 13

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Answer 13

A severe and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur

Question 14

Panic Disorder

Answer 14

• An anxiety disorder marked by recurrent and unpredictable panic attacks
• Panic Attacks: Periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes, and gradually

Question 15

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Answer 15

• A disorder in which a person has recurrent obsessions, compulsions, or both
• Obsession: A persistent thought, idea, impulse, or image that is experienced repeatedly, feels intrusive, and causes anxiety
• Compulsion: A repetitive and rigid behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform in order to prevent or reduce anxiety

Question 16

OCD & Psychodynamic Perspective

Answer 16

Interpretations: OCD disorders arises out of a battle between id impulses and ego defense mechanisms

Treatments: Therapists try to help the individuals uncover and overcome their underlying conflicts and defenses, using the customary techniques of free association and therapist interpretation

Question 17

OCD & Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective

Answer 17

Interpretations: believe that the disorder grows from a normal human tendency to have unwanted and unpleasant thoughts. The efforts of some people to understand, eliminate, or avoid such thoughts actually lead to obsessions and compulsions.

Treatments: educate clients and help them correct their misinterpretations of unwanted thoughts. with such gains in hand, the therapists then conduct exposure and response prevention. Neutralizing, a person’s attempt to eliminate unwanted thoughts by thinking or behaving in ways that put matters right internally, making up for the unacceptable thoughts

Question 18

Benzodiazepines

Answer 18

The most common group of antianxiety drugs, which includes Valium and Xanax

Question 19

Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)

Answer 19

A neurotransmitter whose low activity in the brain’s fear circuit has been linked to anxiety

Question 20

Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) in Anxiety

Answer 20

To counteract this state of fear, some neurons throughout the brain release the neurotransmitter GABA, which then binds to GABA receptors on certain neurons and instructs those neurons to stop firing. The state of excitability ceases, and the experience of fear and anxiety subsides

GABA is one of the important neurotransmitters at work in their circuit (particularly in the amygdala), so low GABA activity could indeed help produce circuit hyperactivity and, as initially suggested, lead to the development of GAD

Question 21

Sedative-Hypnotic Drugs

Answer 21

Drugs that calm people at lower doses and help them to fall asleep at higher doses

Question 22

Modeling

Answer 22

A process of learning in which a person observes and then imitates others. Also, a therapy based on the same principle

Question 23

Exposure Treatments

Answer 23

Treatments in which persons are exposed to the objects or situations they dread

Question 24

Systematic Desensitization

Answer 24

An exposure treatment that uses relaxation training and a fear hierarchy to help clients with phobias react calmly to the objects or situations they dread

Question 25

Flooding

Answer 25

An exposure treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless

Question 26

Relaxation Training (stems from Desensitization)

Answer 26

therapists teach clients how to bring on a state of deep muscle relaxation at will

Question 27

Social Skills Training

Answer 27

• A therapy approach that helps people learn or improve social skills assertiveness through role-playing and rehearsing of desirable behaviors
• Effectiveness: According to research, social skills training, both individual and group formats, has helped many people perform better in social situations

Question 28

Biological Challenge Testing

Answer 28

A procedure used to produce panic in participants or clients by having them exercise vigorously or perform some other potentially panic-inducing task in the presence of a researcher or therapist

Question 29

Locus Coeruleus

Answer 29

A small area of the brain that seems to be active in the regulation of emotions. Many of its neurons use norepinephrine

Question 30

Exposure and Response Prevention

Answer 30

A cognitive-behavioral technique used to treat OCD that exposes a client to anxiety-arousing thoughts or situations and then prevents the client from performing his or her compulsive act (A.K.A. exposure and ritual prevention)

Question 31

Obsessive-Compulsive-Related Disorders

Answer 31

Disorders in which obsessive-like concerns drive people to repeatedly and excessively perform certain abnormal patterns of behavior

Question 32

Hoarding Disorder

Answer 32

A disorder in which individuals feel compelled to save items and become very distressed if they try to discard them, resulting in an excessive accumulation of items

Question 33

Trichotillomania

Answer 33

A disorder in which people repeatedly pull out hair from their scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, or other parts of the body (A.K.A. hair pulling disorder)

Question 34

Excoriation Disorder

Answer 34

A disorder in which people repeatedly pick at their skin, resulting in significant sores or wounds (A.K.A. skin-picking disorder)

Question 35

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Answer 35

A disorder in which individuals become preoccupied with the belief that they have certain defects or flaws in their physical appearance. such defects or flaws are imagined or greatly exaggerated.

Question 36

Stimulus Generalization

Answer 36

• occurs when behavior becomes more probable in the presence of one stimulus or situation as a result of having been reinforced in the presence of another stimulus situations. This can occur due to physical similarly or due to conceptual learning
• Role in Anxiety: