Dissociative And Somatic Symptom Disorders Flashcards
In Illness Anxiety Disorder, physical symptoms are …..?
Either not experienced at the present time, or are very mild.
In Illness Anxiety Disorder, severe anxiety is focused on what?
The possibility of having or developing a serious disease.
If one or more physical symptoms are relatively severe and are associated with anxiety and distress, what would the diagnosis be?
Somatic symptom disorder
Illness anxiety disorder is characterised by anxiety or fear that one has a serious disease. Therefore, the essential problem is anxiety, but it’s expression is different from that of the other anxiety disorders. In illness anxiety disorder, the individual is what?
Preoccupied with bodily symptoms, misinterpreting them as inductive of illness or disease.
Patients with panic disorder also misinterpret physical symptoms (as the beginning of the next panic attack which they believe may kill them). However these individuals typically fear immediate symptom -related catastrophes that may occur during the the few minutes they are having a panic attack. Individuals with somatic symptom disorders, however….?
Will focus on a long term process of illness and disease (eg. Cancer or AIDS), and any reassurance that they are completely healthy from medical doctors is short lived (referred to as disease conviction).
In regards to somatic symptom disorders, what is seen as the central cause?
Faulty interpretation of physical signs and sensations as evidence of physical illness.
Individuals with somatic symptom disorders experience physical sensations common to many people, but they quickly focus their attention on these sensations. How does this process proceed to in fact create a vicious cycle?
Focusing on oneself increases arousal and makes the physical sensations seem more intense than they are. If people also tend to misinterpret these symptoms as illness, your anxiety will increase further. Increased anxiety produces additional physical symptoms.
What do exposure procedures aimed at treating somatic symptom disorder entail?
Repeatedly confronting the patient to stimuli that are relevant for health anxieties (such as documentaries about diseases) without using any avoidance and safety behaviours (such as reassurance by doctors or checking the abdomen for cancer).
What does cognitive behavioural therapy designed to treat somatic symptom disorders entail?
Focuses on identifying and challenging illness-related misinterpretations of physical sensations and on showing patients how to create ‘symptoms’ by focusing attention on certain body areas.
A study by Allen et al. (2006) compared cognitive behavioural therapy and exposure therapy using a sample with more severe somatic symptom disorder. Which treatment showed a significant reduction in depressive symptoms?
Both treatments did in comparison to the control group.
A study by Allen et al. (2006) compared cognitive behavioural therapy and exposure therapy using a sample with more severe somatic symptom disorder. Which treatment showed a significant reduction in anxiety symptoms?
The exposure treatment
Finish this sentence.
Social and cultural influences also contribute to conversion disorder, which like somatic symptom disorder, tends to occur in less educated, lower socioeconomic groups where knowledge………
About disease and medical illness is not well developed.
What defines conversion disorders?
Generally have to do with physical malfunctioning, such as paralysis, blindness, or difficulty speaking (aphonia), without any physical or organic pathology to account for the malfunction.
Life circumstances that encourage the development of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) seem quite clear in at least one respect. Almost every patient presenting with this disorder reports to their mental health professional…..?
Being horribly, often unspeakably, abused as a child.
Dissociative Identity Disorder: Although it has been reported that 95% of cases (in one study) reported physical or sexual abuse as a child. However, not all trauma is caused by abuse. What is the example that the text uses?
Putnam (1992) describes a young girl in a war zone who saw both parents blown to bits in a minefield. In a heart-wrenching response, she tried to piece the bodies back together.
