Chapter 4 Anxiety, Obsessive- Compulsive, and Related Disorders

Fear

The central nervous system's psychological and emotional response to a serious threat to one's well-being.

Anxiety

The central nervous system's psychological and emotional response to a vague sense of threat or danger.

What is the most common mental disorder in the United States?

Anxiety Disorders

In a given year around what percent of the adult population suffer from one or another anxiety disorders identified by the DSM-5?

18%

What percent of all people develop one of the disorders at some point in their lives?

29%

Specific Phobias

Is the irrational fear of a particular object, activity, or situation.

Agoraphobia

An anxiety disorder in which a person is afraid to be in public situations from which escape might be difficult or help unavailable if paniclike or embarrassing symptoms where to occur.

Social Anxiety Disorders

Those who are intensely afraid of social or performance situations in which they become embarrassed.

Panic Disorders

Are recurrent attacks of terror.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

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

What percent of the U.S. population have symptoms of generalized Anxiety disorder?

4% of the U.S population.

What is the most common age that generalized anxiety emerges?

childhood or adolescence.

Who is more likely to be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder?

Women diagnosed with the disorder outnumber men 2 to 1.

Around Blank of the people who have generalized anxiety disorder are currently in treatment.

one-quarter

What are the social factors that are involved in generalized anxiety disorder?

Poverty, societal and culture pressures.

Psychodynamic Perspective

Sigmund Freud believed that children feel realistic anxiety when they face danger; neurotic anxiety when they are repeatedly prevented, by parents or by circumstances, from expression their id impulses; and moral anxiety whey are punished or threatened for expressing their id impulses.

Why do psychodynamic theorists disagree with Freud's explanation for generalized anxiety disorder?

Most theorists believe that the disorder can be traced to inadequacies in the early relationships between children and their parents.

Humanistic perspective

Generalized anxiety disorders, like other psychological disorders, arise when people stop looking at themselves honestly and acceptingly.

What did Carl Rogers believe?

Rogers believed that children who fail to receive unconditional positive regard from others may become overly critical of themselves and develop harsh self- standards.

Conditions of worth

They try to meet these standards by repeatedly distorting or denying their thoughts and experiences.

Client-centered thereapy

The humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers in which clinicians try to help clients by being accepting, empathizing accurately, and conveying genuineness. Also known as person-centered therapy.

Cognitive Perspective

Psychological problems are often caused by dysfunctional ways of thinking.

Maladaptive Assumptions

Many people are guided by irrational beliefs that lead them to act and react in inappropriate ways.

Basic irrational assumptions

The inaccurate and inappropriate beliefs held by people with various psychological problems, according to Albert Ellis.

What did Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis argue?

When people with generalized anxiety disorder constantly hold silent assumptions

Rational-emotive therapy

A cognitive therapy developed by Albert Ellis that helps clients identify and change the irrational assumptions and thinking that help cause their psychological disorder.

Biological Perspective

Believe that generalized anxiety disorders is caused chiefly by biological factors.

Family pedigree study

A research design in which investigators determine how many and which relatives of a person with a disorder have the same disorder.

Benzodiazepines

The most common group of antianxiety drugs, which includes Valium and Xanax.

gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

A neurotransmitter whose low activity has been linked to generalized anxiety disorder.

sedative-hypnotic drugs

Drugs that calm people at lower doses and help them to fall asleep at higher doses.

What neurons does the brain release when a generalized anxiety disorder is triggered?

The brain releases the neurotransmitter GABA, which then binds to GABA receptors on certain neurons and instructs those neurons to stop firing.

Relaxation training

A treatment procedure that teaches clients to relax at will so they can calm themselves in stressful situations.

biofeedback

A technique in which a client gives information about physiological reactions as they occur an learns to control the reactions voluntarily.

Electromyograph (EMG)

A device that provides feedback about the level of muscular tension in the body.

What are the three potential dangers of Benzodiazepines?

1. Many people, when the medications are stopped, anxiety returns as strong as ever.

2. People who take benzodiazepines in large doses for and extended time can become physically dependent on them.

3. The drugs can produce undesirable effects such as drowsiness, lack of coordination, memory loss, depression, and aggressive behavior.

phobia

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

Specific phobia

A severe and persistent fear of a specific object or situation.

What percent of all people in the U.S. have symptoms of a specific phobia

12%

How are fears learned?

Behaviorists propose classical conditioning as a common way of acquiring phobic reactions.

Classical Conditioning

A process of learning which two events that repeatedly occur close together in time become tied together in a person's mind and so produce the same response.

Modeling

A process of learning in which a person observes and then imitates others. Also, a therapy approach based on the based on the same principle.

Stimulus generalization

A phenomenon in which responses to one stimulus are also produced by similar stimuli.

How are phobias treated?

primarily on the behavioral interventions

What are the major behavioral approaches to treating phobia?

Systematic desensitlization, flooding, and modeling

Preparadness

a predisposition to develop certain fears

Exposure treatments

Behavioral treatments in which persons are exposed to the objects or situations they dread.

Systematic desensitization

A behavioral treatment that uses relaxation training and a fear hierarchy to help clients with phobias react calmly to the objects or situations they dread.

Flooding

A treatment for phobias in wich clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless.

What are treatments for Agoraphobia?

Therapists use support, reasoning, and coaxing to get clients to confront the outside world.

Support groups approach

A small number of people with agoraphobia go out together for exposure sessions that last for several hours.

Coax

group members support and encourage one another and eventually coax one another to move away from the safety of the group and perform exposure tasks on their own.

What percentage of agoraphobic clients who receive exposure treatment find it easier to enter public places, and the improvement persists for years after the beginning of treatment?

60 and 80 percent

Social anxiety disorder

A severe and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur.

What percent of people in the United States and other Western countries experience social anxiety disorder?

7.4 %

What percent of people are more likely to experience social anxiety disorder?

60% of them are female

What causes social anxiety disorder?

1. They hold high social standards

2. They view themselves as unattractive social beings.

3. They view themselves as socially unskilled and inadequate.

4. Believe they are always in danger or behaving incompetently in social situations.

5. Believe inept behaviors in social situations will inevitably lead to terrible consequences.

6 They believe that they have no control over feelings of anxiety that emerge in social situations.

How can social fears be reduced?

social fears are reduced by antidepressant, benzodiazepines or other kinds of antianxiety medications.

Social skill training

A therapy approach that 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.

Panic disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by recurrent and unpredictable panic attacks.

What percent of all people in the United states suffer from panic disorder in a given year?

2.4%

When does the disorder tend to develop?

Late adolescence or early adulthood.

Panic disorder is blank as common among women as among men.

Twice

norepinephrine

A neurotransmitter whose abnormal activity is linked to panic disorder and depression.

Locus coeruleus

A small area of the brain that seems to be active in the regulation of emotions. Many of its neurons use norepinephrine

The panic reactions are produced in what part of the brain?

Amygdala, hippocampus, ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, central gray matter, and locus coeruleus.

What do cognitive theorists assume causes panic attacks?

Biological factors are the only part of the cause of panic attacks.

Anxiety sensitivity

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

Obsession

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

compulsion

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

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

A disorder in which a person has recurrent and unwanted thoughts, a need to perform repetitive and rigid actions, or both.

What are some obsessions, compulsions that take form?

Cleaning compulsions, Checking compulsions, order or balance, touch, verbal, and counting.

In the psychodynamic perspective, theorist believe that anxiety disorders develop when?

Anxiety disorders develop when children come to fear their own id impulses and use ego defense mechanisms to less the resulting anxiety.

Where did Sigmund Freud believe obsessive-compulsive disorder developt at?

The anal stage of development occurring at about 2 years of age.

Exposure and response prevention

A behavioral treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder that exposes a client to anxiety-arousing thoughts or situations and then prevents the client from performing his or her compulsive acts. Also called exposure and ritual prevention

Hoarding disorder

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

Trichotilomania

Disorder in which people repeatedly pull out hair from their scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, or other parts of the body. Also called hair-pulling disorder.

Excoriation disorder

A disorder in which people repeatedly pick at their skin, resulting in significant sores or wounds. Also called skin-picking disorder.

Body dysmorphic disorder

A disorder in which individuals become preoccupied with the belief that they have certain defects or flaws in their physical appearance. Such defects or flaws are imagined or greatly exaggerated.