Anxiety, Somatoform & Dissociative Disorders Chapter 16, Sections 2-3

Anxiety Disorders

Do Now (Complete this google form) You will have 5 minutes to complete the following: What phobias do students at RMHS suffer? Complete this survey

Anxiety Disorders Anxiety disorders are psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors People with anxiety disorders feel persistently and uncontrollably tense and apprehensive, with no apparent cause.

Anxiety Disorders Generalized Anxiety Disorder - unexplainable and continuous tenseness and uneasiness. Panic Disorder - unexplainable sudden episodes of intense dread. Phobias - irrational and intense fear of a specific object or situation.

Anxiety Disorder Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - unexplainable repetitive thoughts or actions. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - lingering memories, nightmares, and other symptoms after a severely threatening, uncontrollable event.

Anxiety Disorders What causes them? Freud Learning Perspective manifestation of mental energy associated with the discharge of repressed impulses Learning Perspective product of fear conditioning, stimulus generalization, reinforcement of fearful behaviors, and observational learning of others’ fear.

Anxiety Disorders Biological Perspective consider the roles that life-threatening animals, objects, or situations played in natural selection and evolution; genetic inheritance of a high level of emotional reactivity; and abnormal responses in the brain’s fear circuits.

Examples of PTSD and Phobias Dogs and PTSD http://content.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,671301 612001_2030797,00.html Top 10 Phobias http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsr8JsUr6kU How about our psychology class? What are our top 10 phobias? Let’s take a look at the Google Form you completed during the warm up

Somatoform Disorders

Do Now (In your notes) Have you ever felt ill or as though you had a serious medical issue only to find that nothing was wrong with you?

Somatoform Disorders Psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause, or “medically unexplained illnesses.” Somatoform disorders are one of the most common problems that result in doctors’ visits.

What causes them? Stress is a probable trigger for somatoform disorders. Stress can manifest itself in a somatic (or bodily) form without there being physical causes. People under stress are also more likely to be more bothered by normal bodily sensations, such as a slight headache.

Somatoform Disorders and Culture Culture plays a large role in people's physical complaints. In China, for example, psychological explanations for anxiety and depression are less socially acceptable than physical symptoms of distress.

Conversion Disorder A rare somatoform disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found. Anxiety is presumably converted into a physical symptom.

Conversion Disorders Conversion disorders, while mystifying, are no less real than physiological disorders. People with conversion disorders who claim to have lost sensation in certain areas have been known to be unaffected by pins being stuck into them.

Hypochondriasis A somatoform disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease.

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative Disorders Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated or dissociated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

What is dissociation? Dissociation occurs when a person’s consciousness is separated from painful memories, feelings, and thoughts. It tends to be caused by extremely stressful situations or in a response to some sort of trauma.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) Dissociative identity disorder is often referred to as multiple personality disorder. A person with D.I.D. will have two or more distinct identities with different personalities. Often the original personality claims to be unaware of the others.

What causes D.I.D.? 98-99% percent of individuals with D.I.D. have recognized personal histories of recurring, overpowering, and often life-threatening disturbances at a sensitive developmental stage of childhood, usually before the age of 9.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11oD_8jYy 0c

Is it legitimate? Is D.I.D. a genuine disorder or is it an extension of our normal capacity for personality shifts?

Maybe Not Nicholas Spanos asked college students to pretend they were accused murderers being examined by a psychiatrist. When hypnotized, most students expressed a second personality.

Maybe Not Nicholas Spanos: Are dissociative identities more extreme versions of selves we present? Are people with D.I.D. simply prone to fantasy and convincing themselves they have other personalities? Most people with D.I.D. are highly hypnotizable;what does this relationship mean?

Maybe Not D.I.D. is strangely localized by time and space. After DID was first entered in the DSM,the amount of cases in America skyrocketed. D.I.D. is more rare in Britain than it is in America, and in Japan and India, it is essentially nonexistent. Could it be a cultural phenomenon?

Maybe VeryWell Mind Magazine Handedness sometimes switches with personalities Ophthalmologists have detected shifting visual acuity and eye muscle balance with personalities People with D.I.D. have heightened activity in brain areas associated with control and the inhibition or traumatic memories. VeryWell Mind Magazine