PSYC 316 Chap 4 Anxiety, OCD, and Related Disorders

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

A disorder marked by persistent and excessive feelings of anxiety and worry about numerous events and activities.

Phobias

A persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation.

Social Anxiety Disorder

A psychological disorder in which people fear social situations

Panic Disorder

Periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes, and gradually pass.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

A disorder in which a person has recurrent obsessions, compulsions, or both.

Cognitive-behavior how GAD Develop

Anxiety caused by dysfunctional ways of thinking and problematic behavior

Metacognitive

• Positive/negative beliefs about worry

• worry about worry

Intolerance of uncertainty

Worry to find “correct” solutions and restore certainty

Avoidance

Worry reduces high levels of physiological arousal, perhaps by distracting the individuals from their unpleasant physical feelings

Cognitive-behavior GAD Treatment

• Rational-emotive therapy

• New-wave CBT

Rational-Emotive Therapy

Helps clients identify and change irrational assumptions and thinking

New-wave CBT

• mindfulness-based CBT

• acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Emphasized becoming aware of thoughts as they occur and accepting them as “events of the mind”

Phobias Exposure Treatments

• Desensitization

• Flooding

• Modeling

Desensitization

• learn to relax while gradually facing the objects or situations they fear

• develops fear hierarchy and pairs relaxation with feared object or situation

• Vivo - exposed to fear directly

• Covert – exposed to visualization of the fear

Flooding

• Forced, nongradual exposure

• An exposure treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to recognize that it is harmless.

Modeling

Therapist models interaction with feared stimulus and client may be encouraged to join

CB Social Anxiety Causal explanations

• Unrealistically high social standards

• Overestimate consequences of social ineptitude or ability to cope

• Views of self as unattractive or socially incompetent

CB Social Anxiety Treatment

• Exposure therapy

• Systematic Therapy to confront maladaptive views

• Social skills training - helps people learn or improve social skills and assertiveness through role-playing and rehearsing of desirable behaviors.

Social skills training

helps people learn or improve social skills and assertiveness through role-playing and rehearsing of desirable behaviors.

panic attacks

Periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes, and gradually pass

biological challenge tests

• A procedure used to produce panic in participants or clients by having them exercise vigorously or perform some other potentially panic-inducing task in the presence of a researcher or therapist

• those with panic disorder react more strongly to this test

anxiety sensitivity

A tendency to focus on one’s bodily sensations, assess them illogically, and interpret them as harmful

How Avoidance and safety contribute to anxiety disorders

Because it doesn’t allow the individual to experience the uncomfortable feelings

Obsessions

A persistent thought, idea, impulse, or image that is experienced repeatedly, feels intrusive, and causes anxiety

Compulsions

A repetitive and rigid behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform in order to prevent or reduce anxiety

thought-action fusion

The belief that thinking about an action is equivalent to performing it

Differentiate OCD and Anxiety disorders

educating the clients, pointing out how misinterpretations of unwanted thoughts, an excessive sense of responsibility, and neutralizing acts have helped to produce and maintain their symptoms

hoarding disorder

individuals feel compelled to save items and become very distressed if they try to discard them, resulting in an excessive accumulation of items.

trichotillomania

hair-pulling disorder

excoriation

skin-picking disorder

body dysmorphic disorder

preoccupied with the belief that they have a particular defect or flaw in their physical appearance