Panic, Anxiety, Obsessions and their Disorders (Chapter 6)

Carelessness vs. Anxiousness

• people with too little anxiety have more risk for Type I psychopathology

• infants with low fear and anxiety had lower empathy and conscientiousness

William’s Syndrome

life without social anxiety

• mirror image of autism

• many have perfect pitch

• very talkative

• low IQ

• good language and social skills

  • trouble with peers because they’re intrusive

Anxiety

• a general feeling of apprehension about possible future danger

  • develops later in life because early on we cannot think about our future

• complex blend of unpleasant emotions and cognitions

• has cognitive/subjective, psychological and behavioural components

  • “I am worried about what might happen.”

    • stomach ache

    • increased heart rate

    • tension

    • overarousal

    • general avoidance

• many of our sources of fear and anxiety are learned

  • fear and anxiety are highly conditionable

Fear

• an alarm reaction that occurs in response to immediate danger

• basic emotion

• activation of the “fight or flight” response of the ANS

• has cognitive/subjective, psychological and behavioural components

  • “I am in danger!”

    • increased heart rate

    • sweating

    • desire to escape or run

Panic Attack

• when the fear response occurs in the absence of an obvious external danger

  • subjective sense of impending doom, fears of dying, going crazy, or losing control

    • a lot of people go to the hospital because it feels so awful and they think they’re having a heart attack

Anxiety Disorders

• anxiety disorders are characterized by unrealistic, irrational fears or anxieties that cause significant distress and/or impairments

5 anxiety disorders recognized in the DSM

• specific phobia

• social anxiety disorder (social phobia)

• panic disorder

• agoraphobia

• generalized anxiety disorder

Commonalities in causes across anxiety disorders

• high neuroticism

• limbic system (hippocampus and others)

• GABA (mainly generalized anxiety), Norepinephrine (phasic-attention vs. tonic-high during panic attack or anxiety disorders)

• people who feel they are out of control over their environment and their emotions are more vulnerable

• sociocultural environment in which people are raised

Commonalities across effective treatments

• graduated exposure to feared cues, objects, or situations is the single most powerful treatment

• cognitive restructuring often combined with conditioning

• medications can be effective in treating all disorders except phobias and fall into 2 categories (anti-anxiety and antidepressants)

Phobia

• a persistent and disproportionate fear of some specific object or situation

• presents little or no actual danger and yet leads to a great deal of avoidance of those feared situations