Lecture 2- Anxiety Disorder 1

Question 1

What are safety behaviours and how can they maintain an anxiety disorder? Illustrate with an example.

Answer 1

Safety behaviours are coping responses that provides relief (reduces fear/anxiety) to the person using it, examples of a safety behaviour can be hand-washing or avoidance. By avoiding the object or situation, the individual gets negatively rewarded for the action. As with the case on the formation of phobias, avoidance of the object or situation prevents any new learning or reality testing to take place. This would then cause the individual to continue avoiding the object or situation until an intervention (desensitization) allows the individual to learn.

Question 2

What differentiates PTSD from acute stress disorder?

Answer 2

PTSD can only be diagnosed a month after the traumatic event. Additionally, research has also suggests that the ability to dissociate is associated with the formation of PTSD from acute stress disorder.

Question 3

What are the 4 clusters of symptoms that comprises PTSD?

Answer 3

• Exposure to stressor (traumatic event)
• Automatic arousal of flight/fight system
• Intrusive thoughts/ images
• Avoidance

Question 4

What are the conceptualisations of stress?

Answer 4

• Biological/physiological: The activation of the ANS

- Psychological: Stress can be intepreted as a response to threat or as a stimulus to threat.

Question 5

What differentiates good stress from bad stress?

Answer 5

Good stress is when the stress is productive to the individual while bad stress is when the stress goes past the ‘tipping point’ and into distress. This is with reference to the performance-stress u-shaped curve.

Question 6

Draw the transactional model of stress.

Answer 6

Event –> Appraisal –> Coping Responses

Does the event threaten my wellbeing?
Do I have the coping mechanisms to deal with it?

Question 7

Stress underlies certain mood states. List the 3 mood states for anxiety and explain.

Answer 7

Anxiety: Apprehension of the future - fear of loss
Fear: Immediate alarm reaction, characterised by escapist tendencies
Panic: Abrupt experience of acute discomfort or intense fear

Question 8

Explain the distinction between true alarm and false alarm.

Answer 8

True alarm is the activation of the fight/flight response in the presence of a real threat, such as when you see an approaching ferocious lion, while a false alarm is the activation of the fight/flight response in the absence of real threat, such as a panic attack.

Question 9

List the risk factors of GAD.

Answer 9

Parenting styles
Illness
Genetics
Gender
Early childhood experience
Temperament

Question 10

What are the characteristic features of the fight/flight mode?

Answer 10

• increased heart & respiratory rate
• heightened awareness
• increased sight
• less perception to pain
• increased blood flow to limbs and muscles
• dilated pupils

Question 11

List the risk factors of PTSD.

Answer 11

• Pre-trauma: Gender, age, history
• Trauma-related: Type, predictability
• Peri-traumatic: Dissociation
• Post Trauma: Validation, social support