Anxiety Etiology (lesson 3)

Question 1

Biological perspective of anxiety

Answer 1

1.Over-reactivity of fear circuitry in the brain
-overactivity of amygdala
-behavioural inhibition system(brain circuit)
-fight/flight (FFS) system
2.Deficiency of neurotransmitters
3.Specific genetic contributer
4.Gene-environment interaction

Question 2

Psychological dimension of anxiety

Answer 2

Personality: neuroticism
Behavioral perspective:
Learned associations:1. Social learning 2. Conditioning

Cognitive perspective:
1.irrational /catastrophic thought
2. Lack of self-control and self-efficacy
4.worry about worries:worry about possible anxiety

Question 3

Social and sociocultural dimensionof anxiety

Answer 3

Stressful life events!!!
-daily environmental stress
-poor family relationship
-early childhood experience
-gender differences
-culture factors like discrimination and prejudice
-Ethinicity

Question 4

What are the drawback of taking medication?

Answer 4

1. There are side effects
2. High relapse rates after discontinuation of medication

Question 5

What are the treatments of anxiety disorders?

Answer 5

1. medication
   2, cognitive and behavioral therapy
   -Psychoeducation
   -Cognitive restructuring
   -exposure therapy(systematic desensitization)
   
   • coping strategy

Question 6

Name some coping strategies for anxiety.

Answer 6

Breathing exercises, meditation

Question 7

What is the aim of cognitive and behavior therapy

Answer 7

Identify and modify the worrisome thought.

Question 8

What are the psychological treatment of Phobias?

Answer 8

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: systematic desensitization
relaxation

Question 9

What are the psychological treatment of social anxiety disorder?

Answer 9

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: (highly effective)
- Challenging of anxious thoughts about the consequences of social
judgment
-Exposure to anxiety-provoking situations
– what actually happens if you shout over somebody?
-Rehearsal
-Role-play

Question 10

What are the causes of Panic Disorder?

Answer 10

• Generalized psychological vulnerability
  ▪ Anxiety about future attacks – Some people believe that their panic attack
  will lead them to something terrible, OR the panic attack will be recurrent.
• Specific psychological vulnerability
  ▪ Interpret normal physical sensation in a catastrophic way
  ▪ A vicious cycle between physical sensation and anxiety via the
  sympathetic nervous system

Question 11

Causes of Specific Phobias

Answer 11

• Direct experience (e.g., car crash survivors)
• Experiencing a false alarm
• Social Learning:
  ▪ Vicarious experience – seeing someone else encounter a feared object
  ▪ Learned from others about a situation/object being dangerous

Question 12

Causes of Social Anxiety Disorder

Answer 12

• Biological vulnerabilities:
  ▪ Propensity toward anxiety
  ▪ react to angry faces with greater activation of the amygdala
  and less cortical control of regulation

Generalized psychological vulnerabilities
▪ Belief that threatening events are uncontrollable
▪ Traumatic social experiences
Experience of intense teasing or bullying
* Specific psychological vulnerabilities:
▪ Learned growing up that social evaluation can be dangerous.
▪Having parents with SAD

Question 13

Why are we predisposed to fearing / avoiding hostile, angry people?

Answer 13

Prepared Learning

it is easier for us to acquire phobias of things that would
have been useful for our ancestors to fear