Final Flashcards
Defenses against anxiety in everyday life
Magical thinking, obsessions, compulsions, perfectionism, rumination, dissociation, drugs, alcohol
Anxiety disorders and prevalence rates
Phobias
Generalized anxiety disorder
Panic attacks
Panic disorder
Panic disorder with agoraphobia
Social anxiety disorder
OCD
Eating disorders- anorexia, bulimia
Body dysmorphic disorder
PTSD- only in DSM caused by an event, has to be preceded by a trauma
Anxiety all together- 18%
Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Only disorder in DSM 5 that has to be caused by an event
- An anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened
- Family members of victims can develop the disorder, can occur at any age
- Many people with PTSD repeatedly re-experience the ordeal in the form of flashbacks, memories, nightmares, or frightening thoughts, especially when exposed to events or objects reminiscient of the trauma, also anniversaries
- Could also have emotional numbness, sleep disturbances, depression, anxiety, irritability, anger outbursts, intense guilt
- Many people try to avoid reminders or thoughts of the ordeal, diagnosed when symptoms last more than a month
- Physical symptoms are common but treated without realizing where they stem from
PTSD criteria
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Trauma
- Spectrum of traumatic impact
- Mind responds to trauma through narrowing of associations, can range from isolation of affect to complete forgetting
- Evolutionary challenge- knowing or not- great strength of humans is remembering and communicating, but traumatic events are too devastating for someone to remember fully
- Solution is a compromise, to remember partially if at all
To treat trauma
Tell story over and over again in a trusting relationship, takes this to work through the narrowing
Systematic desensitization for phobias- gradual exposure to feared stimulus paired with physical relaxation
CBT for social anxiety- examining automatic thoughts leading to fears
PTSD- Repetitive disclosure and retelling of trauma to widen the mind’s associative range to allow the events to be integrated in memory
Medicating anxiety
Barbiturates- first meds for anxiety, central nervous system depressants
Anxiety- neurologically
Connections between amygdala and locus coeruleus generate anxiety, LC is major cluster of NE cells that sends axons to parts of the brain to increase vigilance, so antidepressants can reduce anxiety (?)
HPA axis and CRF- releases cortisol when mind perceives danger (?)
Anxiety and experience
If take rats away quickly, fine, but if take babies away for a while, have biobehavioral measure issues (come back to these)
Anxiety meds 2
Benzodiazepines target specific anxiety symptoms without tranquilizing the entire nervous system
Librium, etc, Xanax
Cause a physical dependence, must be tapered off slowly, 100% effective but hard to taper off, and overdose makes you high, psychiatrists divided on value of long term use
Benzodiazepines work
GABA agonists, intensify firing of GABA neurons, GABA calms down system, affect opening of chloride channels in GABA neuron receptors
GABA receptors have binding sites for other NTs, when receiving BZs, opens channel wider, when wider, more chloride, when open, neuron less likely to fire, this lessens anxiety without fatigue
Barbituates open these channels with or without GABA, leaves them open for a long time, more powerful but lethal effects
Experiential approach to diagnosis
Problems in love, work, and play
Object relations intro
Development of selfhood, at first internalize caregivers and represent self and others in mind, when we relate to others, we either relate to them or project our own stuff onto them if we are troubled, as you develop and realize what you are good at and learn your limits, more trauma in early childhood, more early internal representations are problematic and you project these things onto others, early experiences are powerful
Internal world where there are representations of the self in relation to representations of the object
Levels of functioning
Love (friends, family/parents, romantic partner)
Work (career, mentors, skills/performance)
Play (weekends, substance use, vacations)
Mild, moderate, severe, personality disorder
Can mix these
Personality disorder
Repetition- same mistakes over and over
Repetitions lead to being stuck and self-destructive behavior
Chronic unhappiness and anxiety that is part of repetition and more complicated than a simple depressed mood
All together, something immature or childlike about how a person is stuck
DSM personality disorder
An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, leads to distress or impairment
False choice between projection and perception via identification
Our perceptions of other people are constructions, composed of social understanding, cultural cues, expectations, fears, influenced by individual experience
- So how we understand our relationships is based on these things
There is a spectrum between a reasonable recognition of the other person’s motivates or actions- perception through identification- and a distorted interpretation where a person’s motivations are misinterpreted or seen as the opposite of their actual intention- projection
There is some projection in all perceptions but those who project a great deal in their perceptions, across domains, are likely to be labeled with a personality disorder
- If someone raised in abusive household, won’t be trusting, struggle with intimate relationships, expecting betrayal, if that expectation is solid, see betrayal when not there
Clusters of personality disorders
A: schizophrenic spectrum disorders
more like being stuck bc of collision of innate temperament and early experience
B:
C:
Object Relations Model of Self Development
Separation and Individuation
Autism- 0-2 months- implies that infant is immersed in sensorimotor experience which will lead to attachment and awareness of others
Symbiosis- 2-6 months- parents and babies mirror each other, in symbiotic relationship, babies don’t have ideas about self and other, parents are an experience that occurs often
Separation-individuation- 6-24 months including
hatching subphase- 6-10 months- infants crawl, explore, tolerate momentary separation from caregivers, experience themselves as separate from their caregivers in basic ways, peek a boo, babies check back visually when crawling off from parents
practicing subphase- 10-16 months- now walking, ventures out to play then rushes back to be held by parents, running away and coming back, rarely stubborn, constructing mental images of caregivers to reflect on when away and choose a favorite stuffy or blanket as a transitional object
rapprochement subphase- 16-24 months- realize limits of omnipotence, have awareness of their separateness and of their caregiver, increases in cognition and motor development lead to shadowing and darting away, child’s simultaneous need for autonomy and support, increase in aggression, toilet training, verbal no, issues of autonomy and control
Early mechanisms of object relations process
Incorporation- undifferentiated internalization (two year old held by mother laughs when water hits mother’s toes)
Introjection- internalizing parent or ideal object as differentiated (six yo believes parent knows everything)
Identification- valued qualities of other are ascribed to self (11 yo realizes love of music is like mother)
Early defenses
Projection- splitting off unwanted feelings, thoughts, etc onto others
Splitting- perceiving others and self as all good or all bad
Idealization and devaluation- viewing self as bad and other as ideal or vice versa
Projective identification- through subtle interpersonal cues, a person provokes the other into reenacting an earlier relationship
Personality disorders- object relations
People with PDs had an interference with development of personality, so depend on primitive defenses instead of higher order ones like intellectualization, isolation of affect, rationalization
Borderline personality disorder symptoms
come back
Idealized relationships, self harm, efforts to avoid imaginative, splitting- unstable
Do impulsive things to self regulate
BPD study
Give TAT to patients, found way to code these to measure level of object relations and quality of social cognition
Found the way that people with BPD make up stories is quantifiably different from others
Score TAT responses on four dimensions:
Complexity of representations- people with BPD often see black/white, patients made up characters who were less differentiated from others
Social causality- stories had fewer plausible reasons for interpersonal motivations and events
Affect tone- emotions of a story, amount of malevolence, marked presence of malevolent motivations and events
Capacity for emotional investment- degree character shows investment in relationships, characters less likely to show mutuality and trust in each other
Using projectives empirically and understanding BPD