W6 Anxiety and Stressor-related problems (1) Flashcards
Phobias
marked fear or anxiety confined to a specific object or situation. Phobias are quite common. (Arachnophobia = fear of spiders, ophidiophobia = fear of snakes, acrophobia = fear of heights.)
Avoidance’s strategies (Phobias)
if someone has a fear of dog, they might avoid parks. This reinforces their negative beliefs. Usually, people are aware that it’s not rationale. Tend to have a distorted belief, can reinforce their phobia.
What do phobias trigger?
Triggers an extreme response, fear for their life’s, panic: flight or fight response: increase in heart rate, breathing and emotional arousal: feeling of fear.
Five subcategories of phobias.
1-Animal phobias (very common)
2-Natural environment phobias = afraid of storms, thunder, natural disaster.
3-Blood-injection-injury-phobias = sight of blood, anything that could lead to seeing blood.
4-Situational phobias = restricted to specific situation (afraid of flying, being in a lift) ( might need up picking)
5-Other phobias (such a wide range)
Phobias DSM-5
Disproportionate fear relating to a specific object or situation.
Actively avoided.
Significant distress in important areas of functioning.(= what impact does it have on them)
Symptoms cannot be explained by other mental disorders and persist for at least 6 months.
Psychoanalytic accounts (phobias)
Freud saw phobias as defence mechanisms against anxiety produced by repressed id (ça) impulses, and this fear becomes associated with external events or situations that have symbolic relevance to that repressed id impulse.
classical conditioning (phobias)
Classical conditioning: learning model of fear, learnt the fear of rats, because it was paired with the loud noise.
Limitation of cassical conditiong (phobias)
Not all phobias are linked to traumatic experiences.
Not everyone who has a traumatic experience with a specific object acquires a phobia.
Specific phobias are not evenly distributed across all stimuli. (animals vs guns)
Doesn’t take into account incubation. (repeated exposure can make fear worse, not explained.)
Biological accounts (phobias)
A-Bioolgical preparedness thoery
B-Evolutionary perspecive
C-Neurocirucuitry
Biological preparedness theory (phobias)
biological prepared or pre-wired to acquire certain phobias (e.g., real-life threat (hights, water, snakes) Seligman proposed that we are born with the predisposition to lean to fear these stimuli (not that we are born with the phobias.)
Evolutionary perspective (phobias)
biological predisposition to learn to associate fear with stimuli that have been hazardous for our ancestors.
Neurocirucitry (phobias)
underlies specifc phobias.
Amygdala: mediates fearful responding to phobic stimuli located within the medial temporal lobes.
Amygdala: formation/storage of memories associated with emotionally relevant events and acts as neural centre that identifies emotional input and then coordinates this information from higher cortical areas and subcortical nuclei. Correlation between the amygdala activation and emotional fear
Cognitive theories (phobias)
Propose that phobias are acquired by cognitive biases or maladaptive thinking More likely to pay attention to words/pictures associated with the phobia. In comparison to neutral words/pictures. Attentional bias. What comes first, their attention to threat specific detail then fear or other way around.
Multiple pathways (phobias)
Different types of phobias are acquired in different ways. Some phobias might be acquired by a traumatic experience. Other phobias may not be acquired by traumatic experiences.
Traumatic experiences
Emotions: disgust proposes to prevent the transmission of disease orally. Might have increased sensitivity disgust.
Disease avoidance model: attempt to avoid disease from animals, afraid of dogs because of rabbis.
Interventions phobias: exposure therapy
address the phobic beliefs that suffer holds about their phobic event or stimuli. Challenge those phobic beliefs, and provide other explanation for their fear, provide alternatives.
Ways PTSD is acquired
Direct experience: degree of subjectivity (one individual might not get PTSD in the same situation but the other will. Traumatic experiences are subjective.
Witness a traumatic event.
Hearing about a traumatic experienced.
Repeated exposure to details of trauma
PTSD DSM5
Exposure (direct or witnessed)
Intrusive symptoms (flashbacks, dreams)
Avoid external/internal reminds
Negative changes in cognition and mood
Increased arousal and reactivity
biological factors PTSD
: has many symptoms. Some studies on war veterans have suggested that PTSD has a genetic element to it (heritability component estimated at 30%) Gene-environment interaction. Smaller or underdeveloped hippocampus, memory of the even might not be processed same with a normal sized hippocampus. Failure to control amygdala activity: slow reading activity of amygdala.
Vulnerability factors PTSD
Feel overly responsible (tendency to take responsibility, self-blame of traumatic experiences)
Family history
Developmental factors (childhood)
Highly anxious
Low IQ (coping strategies, higher IQ better strategies, productive constructive strategies)
Mental defeat = negative view of the world, or themselves.
Classical conditioning PTSD
The trauma becomes associated at the time of the trauma with situational cues associated with the place and time of the trauma. When these cues are accounted in the future, they elicit the arousal and fear that was experienced during the trauma.
Emotion processing theory PTSD
closely linked to classical conditioning. Memories are processed and stored differently.
dual representation theory PTSD
provide cognitive explanation, 2 seperate memory systems.
VAM: verbally accessible memory: easy access.
SAM: situationally accesible memory (smells, sounds)
psychological debriefing PTSD
explain what happened. Aim to prevent the development of PTSD after the trauma.