Anxiety Disorders

By: previous AP psychology students

Anxiety Disorders When a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of

automatic nervous system arousal. Person cannot identify the stressor, and therefore cannot avoid it. 2/3 of sufferers are female. Continually tense and jittery, worried about various bad things will

happen. Muscle tension, agitation, and sleeplessness, trembling,

perspiration, or fidgeting. Difficulties concentrating because they are focusing on their worries.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Description & Effects It is when an individual is

overcome by chronic anxiety, exaggerated worry and tension, even when there is little or nothing to provoke it.

The effect of this is crippling and makes everyday tasks difficult to complete, mostly because of fear and embarrassment.

Symptoms & Causes Symptoms include: fatigue,

headaches, muscle tension, muscle aches, difficulty swallowing, trembling, twitching, irritability, sweating, and hot flashes.

Causes are unique for each individual, but can include: concern about health issues, money, family problems, difficulties at work or even just the thought of getting through the day.

Types of Therapy: Treated by medication or

cognitive-behavioral therapy.

However, most of the time, GAD co-occurs with another disorder, and needs to be treated accordingly.

Prevalence & Success Rate:

GAD affects about 6.8 million American adults,1 including twice as many women as men.

Treatment success rates vary based on the individual and severity of disorder, some people are easily treated with medication, and for others, their battle with anxiety is lifelong.

Your Slant:

This disorder is excruciatingly destructive, because the treatment is not black and white, the disorder usually coexists with other problems and makes treatment a complex puzzle that must be solved by both the patient and the physician.

Panic Disorder

Description and Effects 1/75 people may experience

Panic Disorder, around Teens/Early adulthood.

Probable connection to major life transitions such as marriage, graduation, etc.

Causes panic attacks, sudden feelings of terror for no reason.

Can happen any time, and is more common in women than men.

Symptoms and Causes

racing heartbeat difficulty breathing, feeling as

though you "can't get enough air" terror that is almost paralyzing dizziness, light-headed or nausea trembling, sweating, shaking choking, chest pains hot flashes, or sudden chills tingling in fingers or toes ("pins and

needles") fear that you're going to go crazy or

are about to die

Types of Therapy Best treatment according to most specialists is a combination of

cognitive and behavioral therapies. First part is informational, and then leads to help a patient

identify possible triggers for the attacks.

The behavioral components of therapy are similar to the cure for phobias, but focuses on exposure to physical sensations that someone experiences during a panic attack.

People are more afraid of having a panic attack rather than the event itself, and can relates to the treatment by helping a patient go through symptoms of an attack and teach them that these symptoms wont go into an actual attack.

Prevalence and Success Rate:

1/75 people have a chance of getting panic disorder, and treatment is very likely to help the patient cope with their disorder.

YOUR SLANT

To quote people I know who have this disorder, “it sucks.”

Granted, the disorder is entirely based on their experience of having panic attacks, and fear of more panic attacks, leading to panic attacks. It seems like a vicious cycle, but it at least can be treated.

Phobic Disorder

Description and Effects

Focused anxiety on a specific object, activity, or situation.

An irrational fear that disrupts behavior.

Vary in intensity and severity from mild anxiety to full on panic attacks

Try to avoid the stressor

Symptoms and Causes: Often a learned emotional

response due to a troubling/traumatic experience. Linked to the Amygdala

Social phobia:Generalized social phobia:

fears involving other people or social situations

fears of embarrassment by scrutiny of others

Specific social phobia:

Anxiety is triggered in specific situations.

The symptoms may extend to physical problems.

Specific phobias: More intense than a normal

fear of a single specific thing.

Agoraphobia

Fear of leaving home or a “safe” area.

May cause panic attacks.

May be caused by various specific phobias such as fear of open spaces, social embarrassment, contamination, OCD, or PTSD

Treatment: Counter-conditioning

Modeling, exposure

Cognitive behavior therapy

Support groups

Prevalence:40 million people in the US16.6% of people world wideDevelop before the age of 2110% reported cases are \lifelong phobiasHigh treatment success rate

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Description and Effects When a person’s obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions interfere

with daily life or ultimately control whatever that person does.

No matter what that person does, the compulsive feelings and anxiety don’t go away.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and repetitive, ritualized behaviors you feel compelled to perform.

OCD causes the brain to get stuck on a specific thought or action.

Most Common Categories: Washers: People are extremely afraid of contamination; like

phobia. Usually have hand-washing compulsion.

Checkers: Repeatedly check things that are associated with danger: oven turned off, door lock, etc.

Doubters and sinners: Afraid that if everything isn’t done perfect or done just right something terrible will happen or they’ll be punished.

Counters and arrangers: Obsessed with order and symmetry. They may even have superstitions about certain numbers, colors, or arrangements.

Hoarders: Fear that something bad will happen if they throw anything away. They obsessively hoard things they don’t need or use.

Common Compulsive Actions: Excessive double-checking of things, such as locks,

appliances, and switches.

Repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make sure they’re safe.

Counting, tapping, repeating certain words, or doing other senseless things to reduce anxiety.

Spending a lot of time washing or cleaning.

Ordering, evening out, or arranging things “just so.”

Praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by religious fear.

Accumulating “junk” such as old newspapers, magazines, and empty food containers, or other things you don’t have a use for.

Causes: There is no clear reason for OCD but it’s believed that family

history and a chemical imbalance in the brain is the cause of this mental disorder.

A specific gene or chromosome has been found that supposedly doubles the likelihood of getting the illness.

Treatment: Treatments include cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, behavioral

therapies, and medications.

Behavioral therapies for OCD include ritual prevention and exposure therapy.

Ritual prevention involves a mental-health professional helping the OCD sufferer to endure longer and longer periods of resisting the urge to engage in compulsive behaviors.

Exposure therapy is the process by which the individual with OCD is put in touch with situations that tend to increase the OCD sufferer's urge to engage in compulsions, then helping him or her resist that urge.

Cognitive/behavioral therapists help patients change the negative styles of thinking and behaving that are often associated with the anxiety involved with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Results of Treatment: Extremely varied. Depends on the person and how they react

to the treatment.

Prevalence: 2-3% of people in America have OCD; 5-7 million Americans