Module 5.4a - Stress: Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety Disorders

Personality disorders characterized by excessive fear and anxiety, and related maladaptive behavior.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People feel persistently and uncontrollably tense and apprehensive for no apparent reason.

Panic Disorder

Anxiety escalates into periodic episodes of intense dread.

Specific Phobia

Being afraid of a specific object, activity, or situation.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsession) and/ or actions (compulsions).

Hoarding Disorders

A persistent difficulty parting with possessions, regardless of value.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Trauma-and-Stressor-Related Disorders

A group of disorders in which exposure to a traumatic or stressful event is followed by psychological distress.

Learning Perspective

Views disorders as products of fear conditioning, stimulus generalization, fearful behavior reinforcement, and observational learning of others fears and cognitions.

Biological Perspective

Considers genetic predispositions for high levels of emotional reactivity and neurotransmitter production, abnormal responses in the brain's fear circuits, and role of fear in life-threatening dangers in natural selection/evolution.

Social Anxiety Disorder

An intense fear of social situations, leading to avoidance of such.

Free-Floating

Not linked to a specific stressor or threat.

Ataquede Nervios

A culture-bound anxiety disorder in the Caribean and Iberian people.

Agoraphobia

Fear or avoidance of situations where one can lose control/does not have any control.

Trichotillomania

Hair-pulling disorder.

Survivor Resiliency

Recovering with healthy functioning after a traumatic event.

Posttraumatic Growth

Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.