Week 1 - Anxiety Disorders (Phobias)

Question 1

What are phobias (when are they diagnosed)?

Answer 1

A fear that is out of proportion to the actual threat of the object/situation.

Disrupting to their life

Question 2

What are the main symptoms of phobias?

Answer 2

Physical Symptoms:
- Feeling dizzy/faint
- Heart palpitations
- Chest pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- Trembling and shaking
- Shortness of breath

Psychological Symptoms:
- fear of dying
- dissociation
- fear of fainting
- panic attack
- stress, and embarrassment

Question 3

Causes: Biological Mechanisms (flight or fight system, amygdala, genetics)

Answer 3

Amygdala - Fear Response
(1) Thalamus receives stimulus and shunts it to the amygdala
(2) Amygdala registers danger
(3) Amygdala triggers fast physical reaction
(4) A clear image of a (snake) is sent to the conscious brain for considered response

Fight or Flight Response
- Evolutionary mechanism involving primitive brain areas and decision making (limbic and frontal)
- Transmits an ‘adrenaline surge’ –> heart races, blood to arms and legs and away from stomach, pupils dilate, muscles tense up, breathing rate increases

Genetic Risk
- Is POSSIBLE - genetic risk may be more about vulnerability rather than direct inheritance
- Role-modelling of fear is an important factor (where 1st degree relatives share a phobia)

Question 4

Causes: Behavioural Theory (Social Factors)

Answer 4

Social Learning (Observation)
- Role-modelled fear/anxiety
- Can be generational and peer-generated, and influenced by media (eg. arachnophobia)

Conditioning
- Classical: “Pairing” a stimulus with a response for a new behaviour
- Fear arises when a neutral stimulus is paired with a fearful stimuli
- Reinforced for avoiding situations (drop off in arousal state)
- This stops people from “unlearning” the faulty learning - stuck in an avoidance loop

• Operant: Reinforcement influences behaviour (positive and negative): based on punishment and reward

Vicarious Conditioning - learning through observation of the consequences of actions for other people (indirect sources such as observation rather than direct insturction)

Example: Little Albert (Watson) - rat stimuli paired with a loud noise (scary) - boy learned to fear rat

Phobias are reinforced by AVOIDANCE

Question 5

Treatment: Systematic Desensitisation

Answer 5

Unlearning the fear response (avoidance loop)
Learn a coping response (eg. muscle relaxation, guided breathing)
- Negative Intrusive Thoughts are learnt to be managed
Over progressive stages from least worrisome to most - developed from a fear hierarchy

compared to flooding therapy: SD a lot less intense

Question 6

Treatment: How can a complex phobia be treated?

Answer 6

Complex Phobia: a deep-rooted fear that may cause severe anxiety and depression

Treated through: Psychoanalytic Formation - looking at the CONTENT of the phobia for what it represents (eg. a defence mechanism against a repressed childhood conflict)

CBT - managing negative intrusive thoughts