Lecture - Anxiety 2 Flashcards
What is social phobia?
It is a marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which individual is exposed to possible SCRUTINY of others like speeches
It’s a fear that he/she will act in a way or show anxiety symptoms that will be NEGATIVELY EVALUATED (you’ll be embarrassing etc)
What are the criteria of social phobia?
- It’s about a social situation that almost always provokes fear or anxiety
- You avoid it or ensure it with intense anxiety
- The fear is excessive
- Persistent too
- You avoid it, it gives significant anxiety and it impairs function
What is the paradox of social anxiety?
That the actual fear is of being nervous, inhibited or looking anxious and you are - so if you’re worried about people judging you if you blush then you will blush.
You also overestimate the threat - like maybe you’ll lose your job if you deliver speech badly but that’s not the case
You also become hyper vigilant to cues from others about their acceptability - so if someone doesn’t say hello back, you think they hate you but actually they didn’t hear you.
What’re the descriptive characteristics of social phobia?
The prevalence is 3-13% in community
It usually develops last childhood/adolescence and the person will usually have history of shyness. Also, in adolensece you become aware of how others perceive you so that’s why onset can happen then
If it’s untreated then it can become chronic and lifelong
Often not recognised by GPs
Generalised Anxiety Disorder - what is it? What can you have as symptoms?
This is when you have excessive anxiety or worry occurring often for at least 6 months about a number of events or activities.
The individual also finds it hard to control the worry
You need to have 3 of the following:
- be on edge, restless, keyed up
- easily fatigued
- can’t concentrate/mind going blank
- irritability
- muscle tension
- sleep disturbance
The anxiety or worry causes clinically signficant distress ir impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
What’s the main feature of GAD?
Worry, worry and worry. Main feature is chronic worry about a number of life matters, the worries are judged to be excessive and uncontrollable. So the worries could be about school, finances or minor matters
How does GAD and non-pathological worry differ?
- GAD is excessive
- GAD is more pervasive and distressing + longer duration. Normal worry is manageable
- GAD is frequent without a precipitant where normal worry can be put off when more pressing matters arise
- It also impairs functioning and ability to do things quickly and efficiently whereas normal worry is less likely to be accompanied by physical symptoms
GAD - say they’ve worried their whole life. What are the two types of worry?
Type 1 is positive bc it’s worries aboutt external events and that can help us to solve it
Type 2 is worry about worry - it’s uncontrollable and it takes over them - makes them uncomfortable
Are PTSD and OCD grouped under anxiety disorders?
Nope but anxiety is a large component in both
For PTSD, need exposure to trauma- what are potentially traumatising events and are they common?
PTEs are unpredictable, severe, uncontrollable.
They are catastrophic violation of fundamental beliefs and expectations about safety, physical integrity, trust and justice
They aren’t uncommon
The immediate stress reaction - what are the normal reactions to an abnormal event?
Feelings of fear, feeling detached or having sleep problems to replaying event. You’ll have difficulty concentration and you’ll avoid situations, cues that remind you of the experience
- After a few days, this starts to settle down and even though we are experiencing it – we can mangae it
- With PTSD: doesn’t go away and becomes worse
What’re the PTSD criteria?
- EXPOSURE to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence by
- directly experiencing it yourself
- witnessing it happening to someone else
- learning the event occurred to close fam/friend
- repeated/extreme exposure to adverse details of traumatic events - There is the presence of one or more INTRUSIVE SYMPTOM associated with the event (like intrusive flashbacks or intense distress)
- There is PERSISTENT AVOIDANCE of stimuli associated with the event - could be external or internal
- There is negative ALTERATION IN COGNITION or mood
- like, negative beliefs about self or world
- no trust
- not be able to feel positive emotions - PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL like being irritable
- The duration of disturbance is more than one month (like 3 days is normal)
- It causes significant distress or impairment in functioning
- For kids 6 and under - similar but indicated symptoms may be through reenactment
- Acute stress disorder is when it’s sorta like PTSD but is at least 3 days to 1 month after trauma exposure
some groups more at risk like firefighters
OCD - what is it?
What are obsessions and compulsions?
It’s the presence of obsessions, compulsions or both
Obsessions:
- recurrent and persistent thoughts urges or images that are experienced as intrusive and unwanted and cause marked distress or anxiety. This can be things like contamination or urge to stab someone or image about something violent
- an individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, images or neutralise them with a thought or act. Like someone believed they were going to die in a car crash every time they drove, and if they opened and closed the glove box 3 times, they’d be okay. Or perhaps that’s a compulsion, actually.
Compulsions:
- Repetitive behaviours (like hand washing) or mental acts that person feels driven to perform in relation to an obsession or rules that must be applied.
- Behaviours or mental acts aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or preventing some dreaded event or situation.
- I think the glove box is more a compulsion.
It is time consuming (more than 1h a day) and may cause distress or impairment of function
- mild to moderate is when it takes up 1-3h a day
- severe is when you have constant intrusive thoughts or compulsions
What are some certain themes that are common themes in OCD?
- Cleaning (bc obsessed that you are contaminated sorta thing)
- Need symmetry and might count
- Have taboo thoughts that are aggressive, sexual or religous
- May have fear of hard t self or others and checking compulsions.
=Harm: if I don’t check the oven 20 times, my house will blow up so do checking behaviours. They might check the news every night to see if someone has been stabbed bc they could have done it but didn’t remember. But with treatment, you need to make them realise that thought isn’t fact. Just bc you think about stabbing doesn’t mean you will
