Anxiety Disorders
- Generalized anxiety d/o (GAD)
- Chief characteristics
- Continuous, uncontrollable anxiety or worry
- Feelings of foreboding & dread
- Symptoms include restlessness, difficulty concentrating (you're too busy worrying about other things to concentrate on the task at hand), irritability, muscle tension, jitteriness, sleep disturbance, and unwanted worries
- Post-traumatic stress d/o (PTSD)
- When anxiety results from uncontrollable and unpredictable danger.
- Examples include rape, war, natural disasters, torture, being diagnosed with a deadly illness, witnessing an act of violence, etc.
- Symptoms include
- Reliving the trauma in thoughts or dreams
- Emotional numbing
- Detachment from others
- Inability to feel happy or loving
- Increased physiological arousal
- Symptoms may occur immediately after a trauma or after a delay of weeks or months; episodes may recur long after for some.
- Acute Stress D/o
- Very similar to PTSD, however, the symptoms do not last for longer than one month
- Panic D/o
- Recurring attacks of intense fear or panic, w/ feelings of impending doom or death.
- Attacks may be brief or long
- Symptoms include trembling, shaking, dizziness, chest pain, heart palpitations, sweating, fear of dying, fear of going crazy, or fear of losing control
- The panic attacks can be triggered by something specific but they also come from "out of no where"
- Agoraphobia
- Agoraphobia is often present with panic d/o
- It is a fear of being alone in public place from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing or help not be available
- Social Phobia
- Fear of situations in which a person will be observed by others
- Phobias
- Exaggerated fear of a specific situation, activity, or thing
- Ex: fear of snakes, fear of heights, fear of needles
- Obsessive-Compulsive D/o
- Obsessions are recurrent, persistent, unwished for thoughts that are frightening or repugnant
- Ex: fear that one will be contaminated by household products or dirt
- Compulsions are repetitive, ritualized behaviors over which people feel a lack of control; performing the compulsion helps neutralize the anxiety caused by the obsession
- Ex: a person obsessed w/ contamination may perform the compulsions of washing hands or never touching anything w/o protective gloves
- Common compulsions: washing, counting, checking (did I turn the stove off?)
- People w/ OCD know that there is something wrong w/ their behavior. And they don't like having OCD.
- OCD can be very time consuming and interfere a great deal w/ your ability to live your life