lecture 4 : Anxiety and phobias Flashcards
Lecture Theme
- Anxiety Overview
7.Anxiety Disorders
8.Biopsychosocial (Phobias)
Etiology
9.Biopsychosocial (Phobias)
Presentation
10.Biopsychosocial (Phobias)
Treatment
11.Rapid Behavioural Treatment of Snake Phobia
What is Anxiety?
Root of anxiety = Fear
What is Fear?
Emergency Response System: Fight or Flight!
what is fear
Normal
Natural
Necessary
3 N’s
fear is NOT anxiety
- fear = now (is happening)
- anxiety = future(might happen)
both have the flight or fight response
When is Anxiety a Problem?
- anxienty is a problem when ur emergency response system is over reactting to thing that are not necessarly dengerous or in need of this alarm
ex: feeling super anxious because your boss ask to talk to you
Why is Anxiety Important?
Anxiety disorders are “gateway” disorders
Anxiety coping skills can help:
Everyone
**With other disorders **(e.g., depression)
Where Does it Come From?
Nature
Temperament
Nurture
Experience shapes the brain
How?
→** What we think**
→ What we do
Anxious Thoughts
Thoughts become automatic
- Strength of neural connections
ex: seeing a dog triggers the ‘fear neuron’ and doing enought the chemicals increse overtime, which can start doing that when just thinking of a dog causes fear and anxiety
Anxiety in the Body
Like a wave
- it peaks really quickly and then it goes down
Anxiety Disorders
- Specific phobias
- Social anxiety disorder (social phobia)
- Panic disorder
- Agoraphobia
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Prevalence
Based on prevalence from an Ontario study of adolescents and young adults…
- 7 students in this class have had an anxiety disorder within the past year
12 have had an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives (up to now)
(really common)
Anxiety Disorders: Commonalities
Etiology
* Biological and psychological causes (genes, neuroticism, classical conditioning, lack of perceived control)
* Influence of social factors can
depend on culture
Presentation
* Unrealistic, irrational fears or anxieties
* Disabling intensity
Treatment
* Most effective treatments similar (exposure)
Basic Research in Anxiety
- percive controbility and predictability = lower anxiety
ex: i have a test if i think i can study for the test (percived control) and i study the chapters i think it will be on test (predictability) i should have lower anxiety
Basic Research in Anxiety
- percived threat leads to fear and axiety which leads to interpretive bias towards threat which leads to more percived threat
ex: i think im gonna fail an exam, feel fear and anxiety,i interpreat my studying will not do anything which will lead me to fail
Phobias
Strong fear & avoidance of
object/situation
- Out of proportion to actual danger
- Disruptive avoidance
- Recognized as unreasonable(for adults,kids might not recognize this)
Specific Phobias
Types
- Animal
- Natural environment
- Blood-injection-injury
- Situational(ex;small spaces)
- Other (choking, vomiting, etc.)
Specific Phobias
12% lifetime prevalence rate
75% of people with specific phobia have at least one other specific fear
More common in women than men
Blood-injection-injury phobia ~ 3–4% of population
Age of onset for different phobias varies
Etiology: Bio
Genes
* Speed & strength of conditioning of fear ( short allel tend to have a sronger fear conditioning)
* 64% with B/I phobia have a 1˚ relative
Temperament
* Behaviorally inhibited (32% vs. 5% by age 8)
* Speed & strength of conditioning of fear
Autonomic lability?(high emotional contaniablity)
Hyperresponsive limbic system?
Etiology: Psycho
Conditioning
* Prepared learning
* Traumatic conditioning of fear
**Neuroticism **
“I see myself as someone who …
- Worries a lot
- Is anxious and does not handle stress well
- Can be tense
- Gets nervous easily”
Etiology: Social
Conditioning
* Modeling, vicarious learning
Ex. Monkeys and snakes & immunization against later fear development
Environment
Ex. Twin studies (twins have simmilar phobias)
Parenting
-To solve or not to solve?
-Inadvertent reinforcement (+ and -) - u should not reinforce their fear
-Parent-infant coordination - children can pickup parent phobia
monkey example
- wild monkeys being exposed to films of monkeys interacting with snakes (they freaking out)
- they were also exposed to films of flowers(not freaking out)
- result;the monkeys that saw another monkey freaking out in the screen, freaked out when they put a fake snake beside them (in real life)
people who didnt see the video werent freaking out
Presentation: Bio
Autonomic arousal (pre-fight/flight) in context (presence or thought) of feared object or situation
Disruption of NT functioning:
(down) GABA: less inhibit of arousal
**(down) 5-HT **:higher inpulsivitive
(increse) NE: high alart
Presentation: Psycho
-
Heightened vigilance/attention to feared object or situation
(rather than attention away from threats) - Negative mood
- Worry about potential danger
- Self-preoccupation (over-consercern that something bad will happen to them)
- low Sense of efficacy(unable to acomplish what they want to do)
- **Diminished internal locus of control **(they think they have no control over whats happening to them
(re: emotions & environment)
