Anxiety, Trauma-Related, Dissociative, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering diagnostic criteria, biological mechanisms, cognitive theories, cross-cultural concepts, and therapeutic approaches for anxiety, trauma, dissociative, and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Yerkes-Dodson Curve

An empirical model demonstrating an inverted U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance, showing that optimal performance is achieved at medium arousal, whereas low or high arousal results in poor performance.

Autonomic Nervous System Balance

The physiological equilibrium maintained between the sympathetic nervous system (governing the fight-or-flight response by dilating pupils, accelerating heartbeat, and releasing adrenaline) and the parasympathetic nervous system (governing rest-and-digest functions by constricting pupils, slowing heart rate, and stimulating digestion).

Diathesis-Stress Model

A theoretical model proposing that psychological disorders develop when pre-existing biological, psychological, and social vulnerabilities interact with new environmental stressors or traumatic events.

Specific Phobia

An unreasonable or irrational fear of a specific object or situation that almost always provokes immediate fear or anxiety, is actively avoided or endured with intense distress, persists typically for 6 months or more, and causes clinically significant impairment.

Blood-Injection-Injury (BII) Phobia

A specific phobia subtype triggered by blood draws, injections, or seeing blood, uniquely distinguished from other phobias by an unusual vasovagal response that leads to a drop in blood pressure and heart rate, often culminating in fainting.

Applied Tension Technique

A behavioral intervention used specifically for blood-injection-injury phobia in which patients repeatedly tense large muscle groups to elevate blood pressure and prevent fainting during exposure to medical cues.

Mowrer's Two-Factor Theory

A behavioral model of phobias stating that fear is initially acquired through classical conditioning (pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned fear stimulus) and subsequently maintained through operant conditioning (avoidance behavior providing negative reinforcement).

Retrieval Competition Hypothesis

The cognitive premise that exposure therapy creates new, non-threatening memories with the feared object that actively compete with and inhibit older, threat-based memories during subsequent retrieval.

Prepared Learning

An evolutionary predisposition in humans and animals to easily develop fears of specific stimuli (such as snakes, spiders, and heights) that posed realistic survival threats throughout evolutionary history.

Subjective Units of Distress (SUDS)

A self-report rating scale ranging from 0 to 100 utilized by clients during systematic desensitization and exposure therapies to quantify their level of subjective fear or anxiety.

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

An anxiety disorder characterized by marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations where an individual faces potential scrutiny, negative evaluation, or embarrassment from others, persisting for at least 6 months.

Taijin Kyofusho

A Japanese cultural syndrome characterized by an intense fear that one's body, physical appearance, or behavior (such as body odor, blushing, or direct eye contact) will offend, displease, or upset others.

Post-Event Processing

A maladaptive cognitive pattern common in social anxiety disorder where an individual excessively ruminates and critically reviews past social interactions after they occur.

Panic Attack

An abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort that reaches a peak within minutes, accompanied by at least 4 of 13 somatic and cognitive symptoms such as palpitations, sweating, shortness of breath, depersonalization, or fear of dying.

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by recurrent unexpected panic attacks, followed by at least 1 month of persistent worry about having additional attacks/consequences or significant maladaptive behavior changes to prevent them.

Interoceptive Avoidance

The deliberate avoidance of internal physiological bodily sensations that resemble panic symptoms, such as elevated heart rate, sweating, or breathlessness (e.g., avoiding exercise, sex, or saunas).

Agoraphobia

Marked fear or avoidance of 2 or more of 5 specific situations (public transport, open spaces, enclosed places, standing in line/crowds, outside home alone) due to thoughts that escape might be difficult or help unavailable during panic-like or incapacitating symptoms.

Anxiety Sensitivity

A cognitive vulnerability factor characterized by the fundamental belief that harmless physical sensations of anxiety are dangerous and indicate impending physical, psychological, or social disaster.

Khyâl Cap

A cultural panic syndrome among Cambodians ('wind attacks') involving sensations like ear-ringing and neck soreness, stemming from the cultural belief that internal wind (khyâl) is obstructed and rising dangerously through the body.

Ataque de Nervios

A cultural syndrome recognized in Latin American populations presenting with trembling, heart palpitations, shouting, heat sensations, and dissociative symptoms, typically provoked by acute family trauma or stressful life events.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Excessive, uncontrollable anxiety and worry occurring more days than not for at least 6 months about a wide variety of daily events or activities, accompanied by at least 3 of 6 physical/cognitive symptoms

Contrast Avoidance Theory

A psychological theory of generalized anxiety disorder proposing that individuals maintain a constant state of worry to sustain elevated distress, thereby shielding themselves from unexpected, sharp shifts in negative emotion.

Criterion A Trauma

The mandatory qualifying event for DSM-5 PTSD requiring exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence via direct experience, witnessing, learning of violent/accidental trauma to loved ones, or repeated occupational exposure to aversive details.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A trauma-related disorder developing after a Criterion A event, characterized by intrusive memories, avoidance of reminders, negative changes in mood and cognition, and marked alterations in arousal lasting more than 1 month.

Acute Stress Disorder (ASD)

A trauma-related disorder clinically similar to PTSD that is diagnosed when symptoms develop between 3 days and 1 month following exposure to a traumatic event.

Adjustment Disorder

The development of clinically significant emotional or behavioral symptoms occurring within 3 months of an identifiable stressor (not requiring a Criterion A event), which remit within 6 months once the stressor or its consequences terminate.

Dose-Response Effect (PTSD)

The principle stating that an individual's likelihood of developing PTSD increases proportionally with greater duration, severity, and physical proximity to the traumatic exposure.

Lanius Trauma Response Model

An unconscious, split-second neurological decision-making cascade adapted from Ruth Lanius outlining four progressive defensive responses to life threat: Flee, Fight, Freeze, and Collapse (dissociation or fainting).

Depersonalization

A dissociative symptom characterized by persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from oneself, as if one were an outside observer of one's own body, thoughts, or mental processes.

Derealization

A dissociative symptom involving persistent or recurrent feelings that one's external environment is unreal, dreamlike, artificial, distant, or distorted.

Three-Phase Model of Trauma Treatment

A phased therapeutic framework consisting of Phase 1: Safety and Stabilization (grounding and emotion regulation), Phase 2: Trauma Processing (imaginal and in vivo exposure), and Phase 3: Reintegration (relationships and daily functioning).

Prolonged Exposure (PE)

An evidence-based behavioral treatment for PTSD that incorporates in-depth imaginal exposure (repeatedly verbalizing traumatic memories in session) and in vivo exposure (gradual real-world confrontation of avoided trauma cues).

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

A cognitive therapy for PTSD that evaluates and restructures maladaptive cognitions ('stuck points') regarding safety, trust, control, esteem, and intimacy stemming from traumatic events.

Susto

A cultural syndrome found in Latino cultures translating to 'fright,' in which an intense fear-inducing experience is believed to cause the soul to detach and leave the body.

Shenjing Shuairuo

A cultural syndrome recognized in China meaning 'weakness of the nervous system,' characterized by physical and mental exhaustion, headaches, sleep problems, irritability, and worry following prolonged stress.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A dissociative condition characterized by the presence of 2 or more distinct personality states accompanied by recurring gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal data, or traumatic memories.

Obsessions

Recurrent, persistent, and intrusive thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced as unwanted, generate significant distress or anxiety, and are met with attempts to suppress or neutralize them.

Compulsions

Repetitive overt behaviors (such as washing or checking) or covert mental acts (such as counting or repeating words) performed rigidly in response to an obsession to diminish distress or prevent a dreaded event.

Thought-Action Fusion

A cognitive distortion common in OCD where having an intrusive thought about an unacceptable action is viewed as morally equivalent to actually committing it, or believed to increase the likelihood of that event occurring.

Orbitofrontal-Basal Ganglia Circuit

A primitive brain circuit linking the orbital frontal cortex, caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia, and thalamus involved in executing behavioral urges, which exhibits hyperactive 'error-detection' firing in OCD.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

The gold-standard cognitive-behavioral intervention for OCD that systematically exposes clients to obsession-triggering stimuli while strictly preventing them from performing their compulsive neutralizing rituals.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

An obsessive-compulsive related disorder marked by intense preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are unobservable or appear slight to others, driving repetitive behaviors like mirror checking.

Trichotillomania

A repetitive body-focused disorder defined by the recurrent, compulsive pulling out of one's own hair, resulting in noticeable hair loss.

Excoriation Disorder

A condition characterized by recurrent, compulsive picking of one's own skin that causes observable tissue lesions and scabs despite repeated efforts to stop.

Hoarding Disorder

A disorder characterized by persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions regardless of their actual value, driven by an urge to save them and resulting in cluttered, compromised living spaces.

Habit Reversal Training

A behavioral intervention used to treat excoriation and trichotillomania that teaches clients to build awareness of urges and substitute them with incompatible physical actions (e.g., applying lotion).

Negative Reinforcement

A behavioral principle where a behavior is strengthened by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus, increasing the likelihood of that behavior recurring.

Expected Panic Attacks

Clear trigger or cue that leads to panic attacks

Unexpected Panic Attacks

“Out of the blue”, unexpected panic attacks that come without reason; go along with Panic Disorder

Theories of PTSD: Biological

Overactive Limbic System; Amygdala overactive (fear response), medial prefrontal cortex under responsive (planning, reasoning), smaller hippocampus

TRAvMA- Criteria for PTSD

Trauma, Re-experiencing (memories, nightmares), Avoidance (avoid reminders of trauma), Mood/ Cognition (thoughts or mood has changed in maladaptive ways), Arousal (Jumpy, on edge)

Ethnopsychology/ethnopsychology

Beliefs about the human body that can affect the ways in which different cultural groups experience and interpret bodily symptoms

Treatments for SAD

SSRIs, SNRIs, CBT (Exposure to feared social situations)

Biological cause of PD and agoraphobia

Overactive Limbic System, poor regulation of serotonin, norepinephrine, and GABA

Biological Risk factors for OCD

Strep Throat in kids, overactive orbitofrontal cortex, low serotonin

OCD treatments

SSRIs, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

First line treatment for Anxiety Disorders

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy