Psychology 2030A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Palpitations

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2030A/B
• Professor: David Vollick

Document Summary

Anxiety - fear about future event/potential future event. Fight or flight activates sns in response to emotional stimuli (usually fear) allowing response to perceived threat. Pns reverses sns to bring body back to resting state. Anxiety causes this reaction despite no real threat. 3 parts: physiological - body; subjective distress/negative thoughts - mind; escape or avoidance - behaviour. Functional impairment; anxiety is so bad it causes substantial distress in person"s mind. Children have developmental hierarchy of fear, less fears as they grow older and if they don"t they may need treatment. Worry - negative expectations about future considered unreasonable in light of actual situation. Anxiety disorders - has all 3 parts mentioned, often comorbidity but not always. Panic attacks - discrete period of fear and physical arousal; abrupt development peak in minutes. Somatic/cognitive symptoms: heart palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, abdominal distress, derealization, depersonalization, fear of losing control/dying, parlaysis, chills/heat.