Behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of OCD, depression and phobias

DSM-5 categories of phobias

•All phobias are characterised by excessive fear and anxiety, triggered by an object, place or situation.

•The extent of the fear is out of proportion to any real danger presented by the phobic stimulus.

•The latest version of the DSM recognises the following categories of phobia and related anxiety disorder:

•Specific phobia: phobia of an object, such as an animal or body part, or a situation such as flying or having an injection.

•Social anxiety (social phobia): phobia of a social situation such as public speaking or using a public toilet.

•Agoraphobia: phobia of being outside or in a public place.

emotional characteristics of phobias

•Persistent, excessive and unreasonable fear – phobias produce high levels of anxiety due to the presence of or anticipation of feared objects and situations.

•Panic in response to exposure to/anticipation of phobic stimulus – phobias produce an immediate fear response, even panic attacks, due to the presentation of the phobic object or situation. Emotions can be cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation.

behavioural characteristics of phobias

•Avoidant/anxiety response – as confrontation with feared objects and situations produces high anxiety responses, efforts are made to avoid the feared objects and situations in order to reduce the chances of such anxiety responses occurring.

•Disruption of functioning – anxiety and avoidance responses are so extreme that they severely interfere with the ability to conduct everyday working and social functioning.

•Freeze/faint – the stress response is often described as fight or flight but it is actually fight, flight and freeze.

cognitive characteristics of phobias

•Selective attention

•Irrational beliefs

DSM-5 categories of depression

•All forms of depression and depressive disorders are characterised by changes to mood.

•The latest version of the DSM recognises the following categories of depression and depressive disorders:

•Major depressive disorder: severe but often short-term depression.

•Persistent depressive disorder: long-term or recurring depression, including sustained major depression and what used to be called dysthymia.

•Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder: childhood temper tantrums.

•Premenstrual dysphoric disorder: disruption to mood prior to and/or during menstruation.

emotional characteristics of depression

•Loss of enthusiasm – depression is often characterised by a lessened concern with and/or lack of pleasure in daily activities.

•Constant depressed mood – a key characteristic is the ever present and overwhelming feelings of sadness/hopelessness.

•Worthlessness – those suffering from depression often have constant feelings of reduced worth and/or inappropriate feelings of guilt.

Anger – anger directed towards others or turned inwards on the self. Depression may arise from feelings of being hurt and wishing to retaliate

behavioural characteristics of depression

•Loss of energy – depressed people can have reduced amounts of energy resulting in fatigue, lethargy and high levels of inactivity.

•Social impairment – there can be reduced levels of social interaction with friends and relations.

•Weight changes – significant decreases or increases in weight are often associated with depression.

•Poor personal hygiene – depressed people often have reduced incidence of washing, wearing clean clothes etc.

•Sleep pattern disturbance – depression is often characterised by constant insomnia or oversleeping.

cognitive characteristics of depression

•Delusions – some depressives will experience delusions, generally concerning guilt, punishment, personal inadequacy or disease. Some will also experience hallucinations, which can be auditory, visual olfactory (smell) or haptic (touch).

•Reduced concentration – there can be difficulty in paying/maintaining attention and/or slowed-down thinking and indecisiveness.

•Thoughts of death – depressives can have constant thoughts of death and/or suicide.

•Poor memory – some depressives will have trouble with retrieval of memories.

•Irrational, negative thought processes – the condition is often characterised by reckless and irrational thinking and decision-making.

DSM-5 categories of OCD

•The DSM system recognises OCD and a range of related disorders. What these disorders all have in common is repetitive behaviour accompanied by obsessive thinking.

•OCD: Characterised by either obsessions (recurring thoughts, images etc.) and/or compulsions (repetitive behaviours such as hand washing). Most people with the diagnosis of OCD have both obsessions and compulsions.

•Trichotillomania: compulsive hair pulling.

•Hoarding disorder: the compulsive gathering of possessions and the inability to part with anything, regardless of its value.

•Excoriation disorder: compulsive skin picking.

emotional characteristics of OCD

•Extreme anxiety – persistent inappropriate or forbidden ideas create excessively high levels of anxiety.

•Distress – the recognition that compulsive behaviours cannot be consciously controlled can lead to strong feelings of distress.

•Embarrassment and shame – at the feeling of being compelled to carry out the compulsive behaviours.

•Disgust – at the presence of germs/dirt.

behavioural characteristics of OCD

•Repetitive – sufferers feel compelled to repeat behaviours as a response to their obsessive thoughts, ideas and images.

•Hinder everyday functioning – the performance of repetitive, compulsive behaviours can seriously disrupt the ability to perform everyday functions. Having obsessive ideas of a forbidden or inappropriate type creates such anxiety that the ability to perform everyday functions is severely hindered – for example, being able to work effectively.

•Social impairment – the performance of repetitive, compulsive behaviours can seriously affect the ability to conduct meaningful interpersonal relationships. Anxiety levels generated are so high as to limit the ability to conduct meaningful interpersonal relationships.

cognitive characteristics of OCD

•Recurrent and persistent thoughts – sufferers experience constantly repeated obsessive thoughts and ideas of an intrusive nature.

•Recognised as self-generated – most sufferers understand their obsessional thoughts; impulses and images are self-invented and not inserted externally.

•Realisation of inappropriateness – most sufferers understand their obsessive thoughts are inappropriate, but cannot consciously control them.

•Attentional bias – perception tends to be focused on anxiety-generating stimuli.

•Uncontrollable urges – sufferers experience uncontrollable urges to perform acts they feel will reduce anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts, such as cleaning door handles to remove the threat of contamination.