Characteristics Of Disorders

Question 1

What is depression?

Answer 1

A mood disorder that causes sufferers to experience chronic low mood

Question 2

What is OCD?

Answer 2

A disorder characterised by obessions (intrusive thoughts) and compulsions (repetitive behaviours) either occurring together or alone.

Question 3

What are phobias?

Answer 3

An intense irrational fear of a stimulus

Question 4

What are the emotional characteristics for phobias?

Answer 4

The primary characteristic is fear that is persistent and is likely to be excessive and unreasonable.
Feelings of anxiety and panic cued by presence of the anticipation of a specific object or situation.
Out of proportion to the danger actually proposed

Question 5

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 5

Avoidance
Freezing or even fainting - fight or flight or freez. Freezing is an adaptive response because a predator may think their prey is dead.
Avoidance interferes significantly with the persons normal routine and every day life

Question 6

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 6

Relate to thought processes.
Irrational nature of a persons thinking
Resistance to rational arguments and communication
E.g. someone afraid of flying isnt helped by an argument that flying is the safest form of transport