Clinical Characteristics

• behavioural characteristics of phobias

  • Avoidance of the stimulus and panic when the feared object is encountered.
• emotional characteristics of phobias

  • excessive and unreasonable fear and anxiety
• cognitive characteristsics of phobias

  • becoming fixated on the object of fear and irrational thinking towards the object or situation
• behavioural characteristics of depression

  • reduction in energy and constantly feeling tired
  • disturbed sleep pattern and changes in appettite
• emotional characteristics of depression

  • depressed mood
  • feelings of worthlessness
  • lack of interest or pleasure in everyday activities
• cognitive characteristics of depression

  • disminished ability to concentrate and a tendency to focus on the negative
• behavioural characteristics of OCD

  • respective compulsions used to manage or reduce anxiety
• emotional characteristics of OCD

  • anxiety and depression caused by the interruption to daily life
• cognitive characteristics of OCD

  • obsessive thoughts and selective attention directed towards the anxiety-generating stimuli
• evaluation of clinical characteristics

  • Because of a lack of cross‐cultural statistics on these disorders, most of the research and information comes from organisations based in Western cultures, which inevitably leads to an ethnocentric bias.
  • There is an aspect of environmental determinism in that phobias and OCD especially can be seen as learned responses to stress triggers. Phobias and OCD both allow for stress reduction, the first by avoidance and the second through obsessive rituals.