Characteristics

• Behavioural characteristics - how people act.
• Emotional characteristics - how people feel.
• Cognitive characteristics - how people think.
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias:

  • Avoidance
  • Panic
  • Endurance
• Emotional characteristics of phobias:

  • Excessive fear
  • Anxiety
  • Emotional upset/distress
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias:

  • Irrational beliefs/thought processes
  • Distortion of reality
• Specific phobia - Fear of a specific object or situation (e.g. arachnophobia or claustrophobia).
• Social phobia - fear of humiliation in public places, leads to avoidance of social situations.
• Agoraphobia - fear of public places, it begins with a series of panic attacks leading them to feel unsafe in public spaces.
• Depression is a mood or affective disorder. Involved prolonged disturbance of mood and emotions.
• Clinical depression symptoms (must follow at least 5 of the symptoms):

  1. Poor appetite / weight loss or increased appetite / weight gain
  2. Sleep difficulty or over sleeping
  3. Loss of energy
  4. Body slowed down or agitated
  5. Loss of interest in pleasurable activities
  6. Feelings of self reproach or excessive / inappropriate guilt
  7. Inability to concentrate or think clearly
  8. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
• Emotional characteristics of depression:

  • Sadness
  • Lowered self esteem
  • Loss of interest and pleasure
  • Anger
• Behavioural characteristics of depression:

  • Shift in activity level (reduced or increased through psychomotor agitation)
  • Affected sleep
  • Affected appetite
  • Aggression and self harm
• Cognitive characteristics of depression:

  • Negative thoughts
  • Negative self concept
  • Negative view of the world
  • Poor concentration levels
  • Dwelling on negatives
  • Absolutist thinking
• OCD is an anxiety related disorder where the person suffering experiences frequent intrusive thoughts.
• OCD is often related with repetitive compulsions.
• Obsessions - these take form through intrusive thoughts, images, impulses, fears, worries or doubts.
• A person with OCD is often aware that their worries are irrational but cannot help but perform compulsions to ease their anxiety.
• Compulsions - repetitive physical behaviours, actions or rituals that a person feels they must complete in order to ease their anxiety.
• The relief that a compulsion brings is only temporary, and the anxiety will come back again.
• OCD categories:

  • Checking
  • Contamination / Mental Contamination
  • Hoarding
  • Ruminations / Intrusive thoughts
• OCD Cycle

  Obsessive thought -> Anxiety -> Compulsive behaviour -> Temporary relief
• Cognitive Characteristics of OCD:

  • Obsession
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Catastrophic thoughts
  • Hyper-vigilance
• Behavioural characteristics of OCD:

  • Compulsive behaviour
  • Repetitive actions
  • Avoidance
• Emotional characteristics of OCD:

  • Anxiety and Distress
  • Accompanying depression
  • Guilt and disgust