Fear
The central nervous system's physiological and emotional response to a serious, specific threat to one's well-being.
Anxiety
The central nervous system's more general physiological and emotional response to a vague sense of threat or danger.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
A disorder marked by persistent and excessive feelings of anxiety and worry about numerous events and activities. It gets to the point that the person cannot lead a normal life. Discomfort is too severe, frequent, lengthy, or easily triggered. People with
GAD - Sociocultural Model
GAD is most likely to develop in people faced with dangerous, ongoing societal problems. Ex. living through natural disasters, poverty, racial factors (African Americans 30% more likely).
GAD - Psychodynamic Model
When childhood anxiety (for id impulses) goes unresolved, or weak ego defense mechanisms exist, the stage is set for GAD. Also, GAD is traced to inadequacies in early relationships with parents (extreme punishments or protectiveness). Patients are more li
GAD - Humanistic Model
GAD arises when people stop being honest with themselves, denials bring about anxiety of not fulfilling their potentials. Carl Rogers: conditions of worth develop when children don't receive unconditional positive regard, and self-judgments cause anxiety.
Client-Centered Therapy
The humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers in which clinicians try to help clients by being accepting, empathizing accurately, and conveying genuineness. Being in an honest and comfortable environment they are more likely to view themselves and their
GAD - Cognitive Model
Primarily, attributed to maladaptive assumptions. Albert Ellis proposed basic irrational assumptions that lead people to act inappropriately, then they overreact to even slightly stressful events. Aaron Beck said people "fear the worst". Therapies: ration
Albert Ellis
Proposed the basic irrational assumptions common to GAD (cognitive perspective).
Basic Irrational Assumptions
The inaccurate and inappropriate beliefs held by people with various psychological problems, according to Albert Ellis. Assumptions are: dire need to be loved by all, want everything a certain way, terribly concerned about danger and its possibility of ha
Aaron Beck
Cognitive theorist who argued that people with GAD hold silent assumptions that imply that they are in imminent danger.
New Wave Cognitive Theory
Metacognitive theory: see the positives and negatives about worrying, start to worry about worrying = GAD.
Intolerance of uncertainty theory: "unacceptable" that negative events might occur, worry about the uncertainty (never goes away).
Avoidance theory:
Rational-Emotive Therapy
A cognitive therapy developed by Albert Ellis that helps clients identify and change the irrational/maladaptive assumptions and thinking that help cause their psychological disorder. Therapists suggest better assumptions and assign homework to practice ch
Breaking Down Worrying
A concentrated focus on worrying, therapists guide clients to recognize and change their dysfunctional use of worrying. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy helps clients to become aware of their thoughts and worries and to accept them, and thus they becom
GAD - Biological Model
GAD is caused by biological factors, supported by family pedigree studies because related persons have higher chances of developing the same disorders (inherited? closer relatives have a higher chance of having the disorder). Linked to GABA inactivity, wh
Family Pedigree Study
A research design in which investigators determine how many and which relatives of a person with a disorder have the same disorder.
Benzodiazepines
The most common group of antianxiety drugs, which includes Valium and Xanax.
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
The neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid, whose low activity has been linked to generalized anxiety disorder because it normally is released to calm overexcited neurons (an inhibitory message). Some people may have ongoing GABA problems in their anxie
Sedative-Hypnotic Drugs
Drugs that calm people at lower doses and help them to fall asleep at higher doses (benzodiazepines). They seem less addictive than barbiturates, and provide temporary relief from GAD, but they produce strong withdrawal symptoms, addiction and negative si
Relaxation Training
A treatment procedure that teaches clients to relax at will so they can calm themselves in stressful situations. Based on the idea that physical relaxation will lead to a state of psychological relaxation. It is equally effective as meditation for relaxat
Biofeedback
A technique in which a client is given information about physiological reactions as they occur and learns to control the reactions voluntarily (like muscle tension, and heart rate).
Electromyograph (EMG)
A device that provides feedback about the level of muscular tension in the body. It works by connecting electrodes to the forehead muscles and detecting minute electrical activity associated with muscle tension.
Phobia
A persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation. It can be triggered by even just thinking about the fear.
Specific Phobia
A severe and persistent fear of a specific object or situation (other than agoraphobia and social phobia). When the object/situation is presented, immediate fear sets in. Close to 9% of Americans have a specific fear, and women outnumber men. They can cau
Classical Conditioning
A process of learning in which two events that repeatedly occur close together in time become tied together in a person's mind and so produce the same response. This is a common way of acquiring phobias, which are maintained by avoidance. Ex. Little Alber
Modeling
A process of learning in which a person observes and then imitates others. Also, a therapy approach based on the same principle. People can learn phobias through modeling, and since people avoid what they fear, they might take a while to learn that the ob
Stimulus Generalization
A phenomenon in which responses to one stimulus are also produced by similar stimuli. When many fears are acquired, it can grow into GAD.
Preparedness
A predisposition to develop certain fears, which can be explained by an evolutionary standpoint (natural fears for a means of survival).
Exposure Treatments
Behavioral treatments in which persons are exposed to the objects or situations they dread. Includes: desensitization, flooding, and modeling. Key to success: actual contact with the feared object or situation.
Systematic Desensitization
A behavioral treatment that uses relaxation training and a fear hierarchy to help clients with phobias react calmly to the objects or situations they dread. The treatment involves relaxation training, constructing a fear hierarchy, and pairing the learned
Flooding
A treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless. This can be in vivo, or covert with very exaggerated, intense emotional responses triggered.
Social Phobia
A severe, persistent, and irrational fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur. Also known as social anxiety disorder. It can be narrow or broad, but people with social phobias generally judge themselves as performing less
Social Phobia Causes and Treatments
Causes: holding high standards for social performance, seeing oneself as unattractive and socially inept, believing that socially inept behaviors are always possible and lead to terrible consequences, and having no control over anxiety in social situation
Social Skills Training
A therapy approach that helps people learn or improve social skills and assertiveness through role playing and rehearsing of desirable behaviors. The therapist models appropriate social behaviors, role-plays with the client, and rehearses their new behavi
Panic Attacks
Periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes, and gradually pass. They are produced in part by brain circuitry including the amygdala and high norepinephrine activity.
Panic Disorder
A disorder that is marked by recurrent unexpected panic attacks, and dysfunctional changes in their thinking an behavior as a result of the attacks (ex. persistent worry about additional attacks, worry about what the attacks mean and their consequences, o
Agoraphobia
An anxiety disorder in which a person is afraid to be in places or situations form which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or help unavailable if panic-like symptoms were to occur. This can seriously affect social life and cause a person to be v
Biological Challenge Tests
A procedure used to produce panic in participants or clients by having them exercise vigorously or perform some other potentially panic-inducing task in the presence of a researcher or therapist. They are more sensitive to and react with greater upset to
Anxiety Sensitivity
A tendency to focus on one's bodily sensations, assess them illogically, and interpret them as harmful - more likely to have panic disorder.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
A disorder in which a person has recurrent and unwanted thoughts, a need to perform repetitive and rigid actions, or both. It feels excessive or unreasonable, and can cause great distress, wasting of time, and interference with daily functions. Anxiety ri
Obsessions
A persistent thought, idea, impulse, wish, doubt, or image that is experienced repeatedly, feels intrusive to one's consciousness, and causes anxiety.
Compulsions
A repetitive and rigid behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform in order to prevent or reduce anxiety. Most compulsions develop into rituals.
Isolation
An ego defense mechanism in which people unconsciously isolate and disown undesirable and unwanted thoughts, experiencing them as foreign intrusions.
Undoing
An ego defense mechanism whereby a person unconsciously cancels out an unacceptable desire or act by performing another act.
Reaction Formation
An ego defense mechanism whereby a person suppresses an unacceptable desire by taking on a lifestyle that expresses the opposite desire.
Exposure and Response Prevention
A behavioral treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder that exposes a client to anxiety-arousing thoughts or situations and then prevents the client from performing his or her compulsive acts. Response prevention allows them to be exposed to insight abo
Neutralizing
A person's attempt to eliminate unwanted thoughts by thinking or behaving in ways that put matters right internally, making up for the unacceptable thoughts. Neutralizing often becomes an obsession or compulsion.