Phobias/Depression/OCD

• Phobia - is an excessive fear and anxiety triggered by an object, place or situation. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) recogises 3 categories.
• Specific phobia - phobia of an object, such as animal or body part, or situation, such as flying or having an injection.
• Social anxiety (social phobia)phobia of a social situation such as public speaking or using a public toilet.
• Agoraphobia - phobia of being outside or in a public place.
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias:

  Avoidance and panic - fear and immediate response is to avoid it, but sometimes have to come face-to-face to feared stimulus.

  Panic, high levels of anxiety and stress.

  When response is so intense - person 'freezing', which is a part of 'fight or flight' effect. Freezing is an adaptive response to make the predator think that their prey is dead.
• Emotional characteristics of phobias:

  Excessive and unreasonable - fear, anxiety and panic.
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias:

  Selective attention and irrational beliefs. Difficult to direct attention elsewhere, therefore selective attention causes a person to become fixated on the object they fear. Their irrational beliefs e.g. arachnophobia, believe that all spiders are dangerous and deadly, despite the fact that there is no spiders like this in the UK.
• Depression - is a mood disorder. Explains disorders that affect emotional state of those who suffer from them, i.e. the current emotional mood is distorted and inappropriate to circumstances. Characterised by low mood and low energy levels.
• According to DSM V:

  Major depressive disorder - severe but short term.
• Behavioural characteristics of depression:

  Changes to usual activity levels, sleep and eating patterns and possibly aggresive to themselves (self-harm)
• Emotional characteristics of depression:

  Lowered mood, anger and decline in self-esteem, worthless, lack of interest or pleasure in all activities.
• Cognitive characteristics of depression:

  Poor concentration, inclined to focus on the negative aspects of any situation, while ignoring the positives. In some cases will experience recurrent thoughts of self-harm, death.
• OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder.

  DSM V: repetitive behaviour + obsessive thinking.
• Behavioural characteristics of OCD:

  Include compulsions to repeat behaviours, usually to reduce anxiety. Avoidance.
• Emotional characteristics of OCD:

  Main characteristic is anxiety, often accompanied by depression, feelings of distress, guilt and disgust.
• Cognitive characteristics of OCD:

  (process of info. thinking - perception - attention)

  Recurrent obsessive thoughts, accompanied by cognitive strategies, ritual to cope with obsession, insight into obsessive anxiety.
• Example of repetitive cycle:

  *Obsessive thoughts - house full of germs, bacterias

  *Compulsive hand-washing, cleaning to 'neutralise' obsessive thoughts

  *Short-term relief of tension and anxiety

  *Negative thoughts such as anger, fear and guilt repeat again