Week two

• Anxiety is a future-oriented negative mood state characterized by physical tension and apprehension
• Panic attacks are characterized by:

  Shortness of Breath

  Chest pain

  heart palpitations

  dizziness
• There are two types of panic attacks: expected (cued) and unexpected (uncued)
• GABA are associated with increased anxiety
• behavioural inhibition system (BIS):

  Brain circuit in the limbic system that responds to threat signals by inhibiting activity and causing anxiety
• triple vulnerability theory

  1. generalized biological vulnerability (being uptight)
  2. generalized psychological vulnerability (belief that the world is out to get you)
  3. specific psychological vulnerability (taught that situations are dangerous)
• generalized anxiety disorder (GAD):

  Anxiety disorder characterized by intense, uncontrollable, unfocused, chronic, and continuous worry that is distressing and unproductive accompanied by physical symptoms of tenseness, irritability, and restlessness.
• Diagnosis for GAD:

  1. Exessive worry and anxiety more than 6 months
  2. Hard to control the worry
  3. Anxiety is paired with three or more of the following:
  4. Restlessness
  5. easily fatigued
  6. Difficulty Concentrating
  7. Irritability
  8. Muscle tension
  9. Sleep Disturbance
  10. Symptoms cause distress
  11. Disturbance is not because of drugs
  12. Disturbance is not better explained by another Mental Disorder
• GAD usually develops in adolescents but those who have it might report being tense their whole life. It tends to be a Chronic disorder
• Anxiety sensitivity, which is the tendency to become distressed in response to arousal-related sensations, arising from beliefs that these anxiety-related sensations may have harmful consequences.
• Ladouceur and Dugas’s identified Four cognitive characteristics of people with GAD:

  (1) intolerance of uncertainty

  (2) positive beliefs about worry

  (3) poor problem orientation

  (4) cognitive avoidance
• benzodiazepines carry some risks

  • impair both cognitive and motor functioning
  • dependence on the drug
• panic disorder (PD), in which individuals experience severe unexpected panic attacks
• agoraphobia: Anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult.
• The Inuit have a panic disorder called kayak-angst
• Nocturnal Panic happen at night and are assumed to happen due to changes in sleeping cycles
• Criteria for Panic Disorder:

  1. Recurrent unexpected panic attack that includes
  2. One attack has been followed by one month or more
  3. (A) worry about additional panic attack and their consequences
  4. (B) maladaptive behavioral changes to avoid panic attacks
  5. Not caused by Drugs
  6. Disorder is not better explained by another disorder
• Diagnostic Criteria for Agoraphobia

  1. Marked anxiety against two or more of the following
  2. Public transportation
  3. Open space
  4. enclosed places
  5. Standing in lines of crowds
  6. being outside of home alone
  7. fears or avoiding these situations
  8. Agoraphobic situations cause fear
  9. Agoraphobic situations are avoided
  10. These actions are around 6 months
  11. These actions are causing distress
  12. If another medical condition isn't causing the anxiety
  13. Not better explained by another disorder
• benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam (Xanax), commonly used for panic disorder, but cause dependence because it works so fast
• Psychological interventions will slowly show someone with a panic disorder that there is nothing to be afraid of by showing them public spaces slowly
• Cognitive-behavioural treatment for panic attacks, involving gradual exposure to feared somatic sensations and modification of perceptions and attitudes about them
• specific phobia: Unreasonable fear of a specific object or situation that markedly interferes with daily life functioning.
• Diagnostic Criteria for a Specific Phobia:

  1. Mark fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation
  2. Immediate fear or anxiety when presented
  3. Active avoiding of things
  4. Out-of-proportion fear
  5. Lasting 6 months or more
  6. Causes distress
  7. Not better explained by another disorder
• blood-injury-injection phobias: Unreasonable fear and avoidance of exposure to blood, injury, or the possibility of an injection.
• situational phobias: fears of enclosed places or public transportation
• natural environment phobias: Extreme fear of situations or events in nature, especially heights, storms, and water.
• animal phobias: Unreasonable, enduring fear of animals or insects that usually develops early in life.
• Separation anxiety disorder: Excessive enduring fear in some children that harm will come to them or their parents while they are apart.
• social anxiety disorder (SAD): Extreme, enduring, irrational fear and avoidance of social or performance situations.
• Diagnostic Criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder:

  1. Marked fear or anxiety about one or multiple social situations where they are exposed to possible scrutiny
  2. Fears that the fear or anxiety will be negatively viewed
  3. Social situations almost always cause fear
  4. Situations are avoided
  5. Out-of-Proportion responses
  6. Lasting 6 months or longer
  7. Causing distress
  8. Isn't Drug usage
  9. Can't be explained by another disorder
• children who where seriously bullied in their early adolescence have a serious tendency to have SAD in later life
• When dealing with SAD the best drugs to use is Beta Blockers to lower heart rate and blood pressure
• To be considered a selective mute, the subject must be not speak for more than a month and it can't be limited to the first month of School
• Somatic Symptom Disorder Criteria:

  1. One or more somatic symptoms that are distressing
  2. Excessive thoughts feelings or behaviors related to somatic symptoms via at least one of the following
  3. Disproportionate and persistent thoughts of symptoms
  4. Persistent high levels of Anxiety about the symptoms
  5. Excessive time and energy devoted to symptoms
  6. 3. State of symptomatic is persistent (at least 6 months)
• Somatic Symptoms Disorders specifiers:

  1. With predominant pain (complains about pain)
  2. Presistent (severe symptoms, marked impairment, long duration)
  3. Severity
  4. mild
  5. moderate
  6. severe
• Illness anxiety disorder was formerly known as hypochondriasis
• Illness Anxiety Disorder Criteria:

  1. Preoccupation or asking about illness
  2. Bodily symptoms are mild or non-existent
  3. High levels of anxiety about health
  4. Performs excessive health-related behaviours, or avoidance
  5. Be happening for at least 6 months
  6. Can't be better explained by another disorder
• Anxiety can be broken into Physiological, cognitive and behavioural
• Anxiety-related disorder OCD, phobias and traumas
• The difference between fear and anxiety is time. Fear happens when something presents itself, while anxiety is a response to something that might happen in the future