Psychological Disorders - Anxiety Disorders Flashcards
Anxiety VS. Anxiety Disorders
It is perfectly normal to experience anxiety or distress as a response to major changes in your environment
ex.
- Breaking up w GF
- Failing an exam
- Having a loved one die
Anxiety and distress is an expected consequence of major life changes and uncertainty, and can even be adaptive at times
Some individuals additionally experience anxiety in a wider range of circumstances
Ex.
- Wanting a cooking, but realizing you’re out
- Not being able to wash your hands every 30 seconds
- Being introduced to a new person
Individuals with anxiety disorders experience anxiety in disproportionate quantities to threat of situations that elicit such responses
What are some types of Anxiety Disorders?
Phobic Disorder
Panic Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Phobic Disorders
Individuals that fear, anxiety, or get distressed as a result of a stimulus that poses no real threat.
Ex. Height, clowns, spiders (These are examples of SPECIFIC PHOBIAS)
SOCIAL PHOBIAS
A fear of being embarrassed that wouldst be likely to happen anyways. (Fear of eating in public, or public speaking)
Usually fears based on highly improbably outcomes (Being locked in bathroom stall)
OBSERVATIONS
Compared to other disorders, phobias are fairly common (10-15% of the population)
PREPAREDNESS THEORY
We are predisposed to develop phobias towards stimuli that could possibly pose as threats
Phobic disorders can be condition in individuals through experience, but some stimuli are easier to condition fear responses than others.
Panic Disorder
Panic attack symptoms: Sweating, dizzy, short breath, pounding heart, intense fear of going crazy/dying
They are usually mistakes for heart attacks in first-time sufferers
Average individual has one panic attack in their life
Individuals with the panic attack disorder will suffer from it more frequently, without an environmental trigger
Panic attacks are often self-perpetuating: (Fear and anxiety of having another one ends up leading to more)
AGORAPHOBIA
Individuals with panic disorders may develop an intense fear of going into public places. They’re not really afraid of the pUBLIC PLACE, but rather the fact that they don’t want the panic attack in the public place
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Constant generalized fear or worrying that interferes with your everyday life
Symptoms include fatigue, muscle tension, restlessness, irritability, and sleep problems.
Its a general sense of fear, and it tends to be there with everything you do
DEMOGRAPHICS
- Affects about 5% of people in NA
- People who face poverty are more likely than those w money
- Twice as likely to affect women than men
- In the US, more common among African Americans than caucasians
- GAD is more common in politically unstable countries than stable countries
CAUSE
Lack of GABA neurotransmitters. GABA agonists (Valium, lithium), are used to great GAD
Benzodiazapines do not work for everyone with GAD. In cases where they do not, SSRIs sometimes will.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is usually a more effective treatment for GAD than drugs
GAD doesn’t have a specific cause, you need to treat the behavioural level, not the psychological level
Panic Disorder VS Generalized Anxiety Disorder
MAJOR DIFFERENCES
- Panic attacks are acute and short. People suffering from anxiety disorders do so constantly.
- Panic attacks have specific (sometimes unpredictable) triggers. In anxiety disorders, symptoms are chronic and untriggered.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Individuals w OVD experience repetitive, intrusive thoughts that induce obsessions, or engage in ritualistic behaviours that affect their everyday lives (Compulsions)
They realize their thoughts are completely irrational, but cannot prevent them
OBSESSIONS
A thoughts that can’t leave their minds, whether its sexual, violent etc
And trying to suppress the thought its usually counter productive
COMPULSIONS
Feel they need to perform the behaviour in order to address an obsession. And failure to do it leads to distress
(Hand washing)
PREPAREDNESS THEORY
Like phobias, obsessions and compulsions tend to occur in domains that could be threatening or important for survival
Preparedness theory would suggest that we are deposed to think seriously about such topics. But that has been OVERDONE w ppl with OCD
Anxiety Disorders and Heritability
Most anxiety disorders have a genetic component
- Identical twins are morel likely to share anxiety disorders than fraternal
- Immediate family are more likely to share than two unrelated people
