A very extensive summary for block 1.6 Normal or abnormal? For every disorder, the DSM-5 criteria, symptoms, aetiology, and related theories are listed. This summary includes helpful figures, tables, and graphs. Using this summary, I obtained an 8.9 for my exam!
1.6C Normal or Abnormal Summary
Meaning of colours/characters in this summary
“→” = “leads to” / “results in”
Purple = which problem
Dark green = theories
Light blue = concepts
Orange = disorders/phobias
Light green = treatments
Yellow = symptoms/DSM 5 criteria
Pink = aetiology (causes of disorder)
Grey = literature source
Dark blue = articles/studies
Problem 1 Phobias
Learning goals:
Case 1:
- When is behavior seen as a phobia?
- What types of phobias are there?
Case 2:
- What different kinds of treatments are there?
Case 3:
- Discussion about DSM5
Difference between fear and anxiety
- Anxiety = involves a general feeling of apprehension about possible future danger
- No specified source of danger (“I’m anxious about my father’s health”)
- Fear = an alarm reaction that occurs in response to immediate danger
- Source of danger is obvious (“I’m afraid of spiders”)
- basic emotion: fight-or-flight response of autonomic nervous system
- Components of fear and panic (response patterns):
- Components of anxiety:
Fear and panic Anxiety
Cognitive/subjective “I feel afraid/terrified” Negative mood
“I’m going to die” Worry about future threats
Self-preoccupation
Sense of not having control
Physiological Increased heart rate State of tension
Heavy breathing Chronic overarousal
Behavioral A strong urge to escape or Strong tendency to avoid
flee situations where danger
might be encountered,
not a immediate urge to flee
Anxiety disorders
,(literature: Davey)
Comorbid condition
Comorbid = suffering from more than one anxiety disorder
↳ comorbid anxiety disorders:
- have an earlier age of onset
- a higher rate of chronicity
- are likely to be associated with depression
- and with greater social disability
Anxiety problems particularly prone for comorbidity:
- many of the physiological and cognitive components of anxiety can be found
cross different disorders
> these vulnerability factors may trigger the development of multiple anxiety
problems.
Phenomena that may lead to anxiety-anxiety comorbidity:
1. Physiological symptoms of panic:
are found in panic disorders, and also in reactions to phobic stimuli in specific
phobias
2. Cognitive biases:
e.g. information processing biases > tend to cause anxious people to
selectively attend to threatening stimuli
3. Dysfunctional and uncontrollable perseveration of certain thoughts,
behaviors or activities:
the psychological mechanism that underlies dysfunctional perseveration may
be similar across several disorders.
4. Individual’s early experiences:
Aetiology (= manner of causation of a disease or condition) of a number of
different anxiety disorders > increase an individual’s risk of developing
anxiety-based problems.
Types of phobias + Treatments
- Obsessive-compulsive disorders =
obsessions = persistent and highly recurrent intrusive thoughts or images that are
experienced as disturbing and inappropriate.
Compulsions = repetitive behaviors in response to the obsession > goal: preventing
or reducing distress
- Neurotic disorders =
show maladaptive and self-defeating behaviors; not incoherent, dangerous, or out of
touch with reality.
Freud: cause is a conflict between id and ego/superego.
In DSM 5 are:
,Causal factors:
Brain:
- Limbic system
- Cortex
- Neurotransmitters: GABA, norepinephrine, serotonin.
Social:
- People who have perceptions of a lack of control over environment or emotions
- Social environment raised in
- Parenting styles
- Faulty or distorted patterns of cognition
- Sociocultural environment raised in
Cognitive restructuring techniques have in common: they help the individual understand
his or her distorted patterns of thinking about anxiety-related situations and how these
patterns can be changed.
Phobias:
Phobia = a persistent and disproportionate fear of some specific object or situation that
presents little or no actual danger and yet leads to great deal of avoidance of these feared
situations.
Specific phobias
DSM-5 Criteria
1. If he shows strong and persistent fear that is triggered by the presence of a specific
object or situation.
2. Phobic stimulus > immediately provokes fear
3. Phobic stimulus > actively avoided (e.g. claustrophobic avoids elevator)
4. Fear/anxiety = out of proportion to actual danger
5. Fear, anxiety, avoidance is persistent (typically lasting 6 months or more)
, 6. Fear, anxiety, avoidance > causes clinically significant distress in social functioning
● Blood-injection-injury phobia
○ = typically experience at least as much disgust as fear + unique physiological
response when confronted with the sight of blood.
○ Highly heritable
● Prevalence
○ 12%
○ 75% of people with specific phobia have at least one other specific exessive
fear.
● Age of onset
○ Varies widely
● Gender differences
○ More common in women than in men
Psychological Causal Factors
● Psychoanalytic
○ = phobias represent a defense against anxiety that stems from repressed
impulses from the id.
● Learned behavior
○ development of phobic behavior through classical conditioning: fear response
can be conditioned to neutral stimuli when these stimuli are paired with
traumatic or painful events.
● Vicarious conditioning
○ seeing a phobic person behaving fearfully with his phobic object can be
distressing to the observer > can result in fear being transmitted.
○ monkey experiment of Mineka and Cook
■ Laboratory-reared monkeys who were not initially afraid of snakes
rapidly developed a phobic-like fear of snakes simply through
observing a wild-reared monkey behaving fearfully with snakes.
● Individual differences in learning
○ differences in life experiences among individuals strongly affect whether or
not conditioned fears/phobias develop:
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