Anxiety

Question 1

What is anxiety?

Answer 1

Anxiety is the fear disproportionate to a given situation. It is worry about future events

Question 2

What are anxiety disorders?

Answer 2

A group of mental disorders characterized by significant feelings of anxiety and fear.

Question 3

What is fear?

Answer 3

Fear is a reaction to current events

Question 4

What is phobia?

Answer 4

Phobia is an extreme and irrational fear of an object or situation. It is dispropotinal to the actual danger. People with phobia tend to avoid the specific object or situation

Question 5

What are the characteristics of anxiety disorders?

Answer 5

The characteristics of anxiety disorders are patterns of frequent, constant worry or alarm about a threat in the surrounding even though the threat is insufficient or non existent. They may not be able to or find it overwhelming to control their worry.

Question 6

What are the symptoms of anxiety?

Answer 6

1. Restlessness
2. Muscle tension
3. Inability to concentrate
4. Difficulty to fall or study alseep
5. Tired or irriated
6. Panic attacks
7. Presistent ‘on the edge’ feeling

Question 7

What are the types of phobias?

Answer 7

1. Generalized anxiety
2. Social phobia
3. Agoraphobia
4. Specific phobias

Question 8

What is generalized anxiety?

Answer 8

• Characterized as the constant over the top worry about several things such as concerns about money, health, family or work. They tend to worry more than it would seem sensible about the issue. May worry about the worst possible outcome without a reasonable explanation

Question 9

What is social phobia?

Answer 9

• Social anxiety disorder is an intense fear of being judged or rejected in a social setting.
• People with it may worry abut appearing stupid, awkward or boring or being viewed badly for blushing or stumbling on words.
• They often avoid social situations but when it cannot be, they experience anxiety and distress.

Question 10

What are the symptoms of social phobia?

Answer 10

1. Nausea
2. Increases heart rate
3. Sweating
4. Full blown attacks

Question 12

What is agoraphobia?

Answer 12

Fear of public spaces. Fear of places outside their ‘safe’ enclosed place. They will avoid triggering places which distrupts their everyday life, making them unable to meet family and friends and run errands.

Question 13

What are specific phobias?

Answer 13

Intense and irrational fear of particular items. They avoid inteference with them. To be diagnosed, must have the fear right away when encountering the trigger.
Koumpounophobia
Cynophobia - fear of dogs
Hemophobia - fear of blood and needles

Question 14

What are the measures of anxiety disorders?

Answer 14

1. BIPI
2. GAD-7

Question 15

What is BIPI?

Answer 15

Blood Injection Phobia Inventory
* Self report consisting of 18 items involving blood and injections. Each have several different options to choose from; these can be cognitive, psychological or behavioural responses.
* Has to rate each symptom on a 0-3 scale

Question 16

What is GAD-7?

Answer 16

Generalised Anxiety disorder-7
* A screening test in the form of a questionnaire used by doctors for the further refferal to psychiatrists, not for diagnosing.
* Consists of 7 items addressing the severity of anxiety.
* Ask patients to rate each symptom on a 0-3 scale based on how often they occur

Question 17

What is concurrent validity?

Answer 17

A way to judge validity by comparing measures of the same phenomenon in different ways at the same time to show that they produce similiar results for the same circumstances

Question 18

Evaluate the BIPI and GAD-7

Answer 18

• Good concurrent validity with other tests
• Valid and reliable to assess anxiety and blood phobia
• Since its a self report, reposnse bias
• Since they are pychometric tools, hard to get a precise representation of thinking, behaviours and emotions
• Cultural bias

Question 19

What is the case study under anxiety?

Answer 19

Kimya, 39 year old woman, with a fear of birds. Cannot stand looking at photographs and find wings flapping upsetting and feels sick at the thought of touching feathers.
Avoids places there could be birds and so limits her social life

Question 20

What was the behavioural explanation for anxeity disorders?

Answer 20

The explanation is based on classical conditioning where a neural stimulus is linking to a frightening experience (unconditioned stimulus) resulting in a consitioned response.

Question 21

Describe Watson and Rayner’s study?

Answer 21

The study of Little albert
* To investigate the developement of phobia in a 11 month old infant.
* He was initially shown different stimuli to see his reaction. The white rat was chosen as the neutral stimulus. The noise from the hammer was the unconditioned stimulus.
* In the conditioning phase, a metal bar was kept behind and over the baby’s head. The rat was kept infront of the baby and he would reach it. When he touches it, the metal rods were hit by a hammer, causing the child distress
* This repeated over several weeks and eventually the child developed a fear response.
* The fear generalised to other objects with similiar characteristics.

Question 22

Evaluate Watson and Rayner’s study

Answer 22

Srengths
* Longitudinal study
Weaknesses
* Small child
* Unethical
* Low generalisability

Question 23

What was the psychoanalytic explanation of anxiety disorders?

Answer 23

• Freud suggested that fear and anxiety is a form of defense mechanism rooting from conflict between the id and superego, particularly when the id is denied or repressed.
• He suggests that such conflicts originate from different psychosexual stages in child development and the phobic trigger symbolizes the typical conflic of the present stage.

Question 24

What is Oedipus complex?

Answer 24

The sexual desrie for the opposite sex parent and a rivalry sense for the same sex parent

Question 25

Describe Freud's study

Answer 25

* Little Hans, autrian boy, with a fear of horses. Feud suggested his fear was representative of his Oedipus complex. * Feud only met him twice and han's dad gave all the details. * At the age of 3, attentive of his penis. Irriated mother and got a fear of castration after threat. * Mother gave brith to sister and was away at the hospital. Concomitantly how a horse fell and died. * Soon after developed a fear of horses thinking theyll bite him. Father suggested this was due to their large penises. * A conflict emerged between father and hans and father didnt let hans lay with his mother in the morning. During this time had 2 fantasies.

Question 26

What were the two fantasies of Hans?

Answer 26

1. He had children of his own with his mother and his father was actually his grandfather 2. A plumber removed his penis and gave him a bigger one

Question 27

What were the conclusions from Freud's study?

Answer 27

Freud concluded that the horse in Han's phobia is a projection of his dad sespecially cause he was scared of white horss with black nosebands which ca be interpreted as his dad's mustache. His anxiety was associated with the fear of being castrated and the inability to be with mother. His oedipus complex can be seen by his 2 fanatsies; being with mother and more powerful than dad.

Question 28

What is the genetic explanation of anxiety disorders?

Answer 28

It states that phobias to certain objects are transmitted in our DNA as a survival method

Question 29

Describe Ost's study

Answer 29

* 81 blood phobic and 59 injection phobics compared to a smaple group with random phobias. * Had to undergo a screening interview, a self report questionnair about their phobias and a behvioural test. * The blood phobics were shown a 30 min silent coloured video of a surgery being performed. Were asked to view for as long as they can and trail stopped when they did. * Injection phobics has a 'live' procedure with 20 steps of pricking their finger. At each, they were told what was about to happen and aksed for consent. If they said no. trial stopped. * 3 assessment measures: How long they remained in trails, their fainting behaviour and self report of anxiety. Blood presssure and heart rate taken to explain fainting. They also answered a questionnaire about what they felt

Question 30

What were the results from Ost's study?

Answer 30

* 50% of blood and 27% of injection had a parent with same phobia * 21% of blood had a sibling * 70% blood and 56% injection fainted to trigger * Other phobias were higher * 10.8 fro blood and 7.7 fro injection faint incidents

Question 31

What is the cognitive explanation of anxiety disorders?

Answer 31

Suggests that certain individuals comprehend the phobic stimuli to be more threatning than others and have a faulty idea about harmful they are

Question 32

Describe Di Nardo's study

Answer 32

* Investigated cynophobia - fear of dogs * Prior to study, 14 afraid of dogs and 21 not all female college students * Were structurally interviewed about manner and cause of phobia. If they had a past event or what they think will happen encountering a dog * In study, 37 female psychology students. aged 18-21, sampled cause they rated either highly fearful or not. * Interviewed again.

Question 33

# [](http://) What were the results and conclusion from Di Nardo et al's study?

Answer 33

* Results showed that 56% of fear and 66% of non fear had bad encounters with dogs. * Everyone in fear expected to be harmed * Painful experineces common in both but negative expectations rarely in non fear Conclusion; * Conditioning event is not the only factor causing phobia but also includes the person's thought process and their rationalization about the event

Question 34

Deiffernece between 'in vitro' and 'in vivo'?

Answer 34

'In vitro' are instances where the person is asked to imagine the phobic event whereas 'in vivo' is when the person is actually met with the triggering event

Question 35

What is reciprocal inhibition?

Answer 35

Two strong opposite emotions cannot occur simultaneously

Question 36

What is systematic desensitization? | Wolpe's study

Answer 36

* Based on the behavioural explanation - if a phobia can be learned can be unlearned * Aim to minimize unwanted reactions to triggering stimuli * Uses reciprocal inhibition where the perosn's fear is put to conflict with a feeling of relaxation. * Intially done by teaching relaxing techniques * The therapists and patient put together a heirachy or fearful stimuli ordered by severity and be exposed to each, only moving to the next when the stage no longer gives anxiety. * The fear is gradually unlearned because cannot experinece fear and calm together | Effective with snake/agarophobia but declining since 1980s

Question 37

What is the applied tension treatment for anxiety disorders?

Answer 37

* The applied tension treatment is based on the biochemical explanation that people with blood phobia faint when their blood pressure and heart rate shifts from the normal. * To reduce the incidents of fainting, individuals are taught how to increase their blood pressure by practicing muscle tension and stop when they feel blood rushing in their face.

Question 38

Describe Ost's study in applied tension treatment

Answer 38

* 19 females and 11 males from the same hospital where genetic explanation was tested. Aged between 18 - 60. * Blood, wound and injurt phobics were treated with applied tension, applied relaxation or both * First gave a self report and a behavioural and psychological to measure their tendies of anxeity and fainting. (while watching videos and masured heart rate and blood pressure) * Individual measure design, went through 45 and 60 mins sessions(Applied tension-5 sessions, applied relax- 9 and comb-10) * Have to apply these when event of fear

Question 39

What were the results from Ost's study in applied tension treatment?

Answer 39

In 6 month follow up, 73% of all showed improvements in behaviour and faniting incidents. Applied tesion had been atleast as effective as others half the time, it was suggested as the most appropriate

Question 40

What are panic disorders?

Answer 40

Recognized as mental disorders characterized by spontaneous and unexpected panic attacks

Question 41

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for anxeity disorders? (Ost and Westling)

Answer 41

* Involves changing the patient's thoughts about the reason for their anxiety. * CBT and AR used to treat panic disorder. * 38 patients, selected frm newspaper advert and psychiatrist referrals. Sessions every week for 12 weeks. * Were assessed before, after and 1 year follow up by self report and self observations of the panic attacks. Kept a diary notting their attacks and how severe. * Professional therapists and patients identified patient's worng exggerated interpretation of physical reactions and asked to come up with more realistic ones. * They had to practice in panic and non panic situations. * Results showed no differnece between CBT and AR. at 1 yr follow up, no relapses