Abnormal Psychology Flashcards
what are the essential features of anxiety disorders?
• The anxiety disorders have anxiety or panic or both at their core.
They were initially considered a subset of the neuroses, but this
term was largely abandoned after DSM-III.
• Fear or panic is a basic emotion that involves activation of the
fight-or-flight response of the autonomic nervous system; it
occurs in response to imminent danger.
• Anxiety is a more diffuse blend of emotions that includes high
levels of negative affect, worry about possible threat or danger, and the sense of being unable to predict threat or to control it if it occurs.
what are the different types of phobias?
• With specific phobias, there is an intense and irrational fear of spe-
cific objects or situations that leads to a great deal of avoidance behavior; when confronted with a feared object, the phobic person often shows activation of the fight-or-flight response, which is also associated with panic.
• In social phobia, a person has disabling fears of one or more social situations, usually because of fears of negative evaluation by others or of acting in an embarrassing or humiliating manner; in some cases a person with social phobia may actually experience panic attacks in social situations.
• People with social phobia also have prominent perceptions of unpredictability and uncontrollability and are preoccupied with negative self-evaluative thoughts that tend to interfere with their ability to interact in a socially skillful fashion.
why do anxiety disorders develop?
• Many sources of fear and anxiety are believed to be acquired
through conditioning or other learning mechanisms. However, some people (because of either temperamental or experien-
tial factors) are more vulnerable than others to acquiring such responses.
• We seem to have an evolutionarily based preparedness to acquire readily fears of objects or situations that posed a threat to our early ancestors.
what are the clinical features of Panic Disorder?
• In panic disorder, a person experiences recurrent, unexpected
panic attacks that often create a sense of stark terror and numer- ous other physical symptoms of the fight-or-flight response; panic attacks usually subside in a matter of minutes.
• Many people who experience panic attacks develop anxious apprehension about experiencing another attack; this apprehen- sion is required for a diagnosis of panic disorder.
• Many people with panic disorder also develop agoraphobic avoidance of situations in which they fear that they might have an attack.
what factors are implicated in the development of panic disorder?
• Biological theories of panic disorder emphasize that the disorder
may result from biochemical abnormalities in the brain as well as abnormal activity of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin.
• Panic attacks may arise primarily from the brain area called the amygdala, although many other areas are also involved in panic disorder.
• The learning theory of panic disorder proposes that panic attacks cause the conditioning of anxiety primarily to external cues associ- ated with the attacks and conditioning of panic itself primarily to interoceptive cues associated with the early stages of the attacks.
• The cognitive theory of panic disorder holds that this condition may develop in people who are prone to making catastrophic mis- interpretations of their bodily sensations, a tendency that may be related to preexisting high levels of anxiety sensitivity.
Describe the clinical aspects of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
• In generalized anxiety disorder, a person has chronic and excessively
high levels of worry about a number of events or activities and
responds to stress with high levels of psychic and muscle tension.
• Generalized anxiety disorder mayoccurinpeoplewhohavehad
extensive experience with unpredictable or uncontrollable life
events.
• Peoplewithgeneralizedanxietyseemtohavedangerschemasabout
their inability to cope with strange and dangerous situations that
promote worries focused on possible future threats.
• Theneurobiologicalfactormostimplicatedingeneralizedanxiety is a functional deficiency in the neurotransmitter GABA, which is
involved in inhibiting anxiety in stressful situations; the limbic sys- tem is the brain area most involved.
how are anxiety disorders treated?
• Once a person has AD mood congruent information processing, such as attentional and interpretive biases, seems to help maintain it. This explains why, without treat- ment, anxiety disorders are often chronic conditions.
Many people with anxiety disorders are treated by physicians,
• often with medications designed to allay anxiety or with anti- depressant medications that also have antianxiety effects when taken for at least 3 to 4 weeks. Such treatment focuses on sup- pressing the symptoms, and some anxiolytic medications have the potential to cause physiological dependence. Once the medications are discontinued, relapse rates tend to be high.
• Behavioral and cognitive therapies have a very good track record with regard to treatment of the anxiety disorders. A key ingredient of effective treatment is prolonged exposure to feared situations.
• Cognitive therapies focus on helping clients understand their underlying automatic thoughts, which often involve cognitive distortions such as unrealistic predictions of catastrophes that in reality are very unlikely to occur. Then they learn to change these inner thoughts and beliefs through a process of logical reanalysis known as cognitive restructuring.
what are the clinical features of obsessive-compulsive disorder and how is this disorder treated?
In obsessive-compulsive disorder, a person experiences unwanted • and intrusive distressing thoughts or images that are usually
accompanied by compulsive behaviors performed to neutralize those thoughts or images. Checking and cleaning rituals are most common.
Biological causal factors are also involved in obsessive-compul-
• sive disorder, with evidence coming from genetic studies, stud- ies of brain functioning, and psychopharmacological studies. Once this disorder begins, the anxiety-reducing qualities of the
• compulsive behaviors may help to maintain the disorder. Behavior therapies that involve exposure are effective in the
• treatment of OCD. Rituals must also must be prevented fol- lowing exposure to the feared situations.
Describe three obsessive-compulsive related disorders
People with of BDD are obsessed with some perceived or imag-
ined flaw or flaws in their appearance to the point they firmly believe they are disfigured or ugly. This preoccupation is so intense that it causes clinically significant distress and impair- ment in social or occupational functioning.
• Compulsive hoarders acquire and fail to discard many pos- sessions that seem useless or of very limited value, in part because of the emotional attachment they develop to their possessions. Compulsive hoarders are significantly more dis- abled than people with OCD without compulsive hoarding symptoms.
• Trichotillomania (also known as compulsive hair pulling) has as its primary symptom the urge to pull out one’s hair from anywhere on the body (most often the scalp, eyebrows, or arms), resulting in noticeable hair loss.
What are mood disorders?
Mood disorders are those in which extreme variations in mood—
either low or high—are the predominant feature. Although some variations in mood are normal, for some people the extremity of moods in either direction becomes seriously maladaptive, even to the extent of suicide.
What symptoms are characteristic of depressive disorders?
Most people with mood disorders have some form of depressive
disorder—dysthymia or major depression. Such individuals expe- rience a range of affective, cognitive, motivational, and biological symptoms including persistent sadness, negative thoughts about the self and the future, lack of energy or initiative, too much or too little sleep, and gaining or losing weight.
What are the causal factors in unipolar mood disorders?
• Among biological causal factors for depressive disorder, there is
evidence of a moderate genetic contribution to the vulnerability for major depression and probably dysthymia as well. Moreover, major depressions are clearly associated with multiple interacting disturbances in neurochemical, neuroendocrine, and neurophysi- ological systems. Disruptions in circadian and seasonal rhythms are also prominent features of depression.
• Among psychosocial theories of the causes of depressive disorder are Beck’s cognitive theory and the reformulated helplessness
and hopelessness theories, which are formulated as diathesis- stress models, and a tendency to ruminate about one’s mood or problems exacerbates their effects. The diathesis is cognitive in nature (e.g., dysfunctional beliefs and pessimistic attributional style, respectively), and stressful life events are often important in determining when those diatheses actually lead to depression.
• Personality variables such as neuroticism may also serve as dia- theses for depression.
• Psychodynamic and interpersonal theories of unipolar depression emphasize the importance of early experiences (especially early losses and the quality of the parent–child relationship) as setting up a predisposition for depression.
What are bipolar disorders?
•In the bipolar disorders (cyclothymia and bipolar I and II dis- orders), the person experiences episodes of both depression and hypomania or mania. During manic or hypomanic episodes, the symptoms are essentially the opposite of those experienced dur- ing a depressive episode.
What are the causal factors in bipolar disorder?
• Biological causal factors probably play an even more prominent
role for bipolar disorders than for unipolar disorders. The genetic contribution to bipolar disorder is among the strongest of such contributions to the major psychiatric disorders. Neurochemical imbalances, abnormalities of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and disturbances in biological rhythms all play important roles in bipolar disorders.
• Stressful life events may be involved in precipitating manic or depressive episodes, but it is unlikely that they cause the disorder.
What are the treatments and outcomes for mood disorders?
• Biologically based treatments such as medications or electro-
convulsive therapy are often used in the treatment of the more severe major disorders. Increasingly, however, specific psychoso- cial treatments such as cognitive therapy, behavioral activation treatment, and interpersonal therapy are also being used to good effect in many cases of these more severe disorders as well as in the milder forms of mood disorder. Considerable evidence sug- gests that recurrent depression is best treated by specialized forms of psychotherapy or by maintenance on medications for pro- longed periods.
