anxiety disorders. exploring anxiety disorders people with anxiety disorders… –feel overwhelming...
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Anxiety Disorders
Exploring Anxiety Disorders
• People with anxiety disorders…– Feel overwhelming
tension, apprehension, or fear when there is no real danger
– May take extreme action to avoid the source of their anxiety
Types of Anxiety Disorders• Panic attacks• Agoraphobia• Specific phobia• Social phobia• Generalized anxiety
disorder• Obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD)• Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder
Panic Attacks
• Apprehension leading to intense fear
• Sensation of “going crazy”, losing control, or of huge looming catastrophe
• Physical signs include racing heartbeat, rapid breath, dizziness, nausea, feeling like you’re going to have a heart attack or die
Why/When panic attacks occur
• Situationally bound: always occur during the same situation
• Unexpected: never knowing when one might occur which may lead to avoidance of any situation that may be unsafe
Agoraphobia (fear of the market place)
• Fear/avoidance of situations and people that may be unsafe to have a panic attack
• In extreme cases, inability to leave house or even room
• Begins after a panic attack, but can continue for years even if there are no more panic attacks
Specific Phobia
• Fear of specific object that triggers the attack
• Develops from personal experience of traumatic event with the object, situation, or misinformation
Interesting Phobias
• Fear of spiders: arachnophobia
• Fear of snakes: ophiodophobia
• Fear of heights: acrophobia
• Fear of storms: astraphobia
• Fear of tight spaces: claustrophobia
• Fear of the dark: nyctophobia
• Fear of needles: aichmophobia
• Fear of clowns: coulrophobia
Social Phobia
• Fear of being in situations that call for some kind of “performance” that may be judged – speaking in public, meeting new people, going to work
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Biologically vulnerable • Uncontrollable,
unproductive worrying about everyday events
• Inability to stop the worry/anxiety cycle
• Physical symptoms of muscle tension
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Obsessions: unwanted and uncontrollable thoughts
• Compulsions: repetitious behaviors
• OCD: fear of obsessions leads to compulsive behavior (the person finds the behavior to be relaxing)
Common Examples of OCD
• Contamination fears of germs: washing
• Imagine harming self or others: repeating
• Imaging losing control: checking
• Forbidden thoughts: arranging/organizing
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Fear of reexperiencing a traumatic event (rape, war, life-threatening situation)
• Nightmares of traumatic event in flashbacks
• Avoidance of intense feelings through emotional numbing
Causes/Treatment
• Biological Influences• Cognitive-Behavioral• Psychodynamic• Diathesis-Stress
Biological Influences
• Inherited vulnerability to experience anxiety or panic attacks
• Activation of specific brain circuits and neurotransmitters
Biological Treatments
• XANAX and other anti-anxiety medicine
• PROZAC and other anti-depressants (SSRI- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)
Cognitive-Behavioral Influences
• Learned behaviors (usually undesirable behaviors)
• Feelings that physical symptoms of panic are catastrophic
• Spiral out of control
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment
• Cognitive therapy to change irrational thoughts
• Systematic desensitization
• Shaping
Psychodynamic Influences
• Unconscious conflicts from past
• Repressed memories from childhood
Psychodynamic Treatments
• Free Association• Hypnosis
Diathesis-Stress
• Potential + Situation
• Eclectic treatment
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