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Title: Slides & Handouts by Karen Clay Rhines, Ph.D. Seton Hall


1
Chapter 5
Slides Handouts by Karen Clay Rhines,
Ph.D. Seton Hall University
  • Anxiety Disorders

2
Anxiety
  • What distinguishes fear from anxiety?
  • Fear is a state of immediate alarm in response to
    a serious, known threat to ones well-being
  • Anxiety is a state of alarm in response to a
    vague sense of threat or danger
  • Both have the same physiological features
    increase in respiration, perspiration, muscle
    tension, etc.

3
Anxiety
  • Is the fear/anxiety response useful/adaptive?
  • Yes, when the fight or flight response is
    protective
  • However, when it is triggered by inappropriate
    situations, or when it is too severe or
    long-lasting, this response can be disabling
  • Can lead to the development of anxiety disorders

4
Anxiety Disorders
  • Most common mental disorders in the U.S.
  • In any given year, 18 of the adult population in
    the U.S. experiences one of the six DSM-IV-TR
    anxiety disorders
  • Close to 29 develop one of the disorders at some
    point in their lives
  • Only 20 of these individuals seek treatment
  • Most individuals with one anxiety disorder suffer
    from a second disorder, as well
  • Anxiety disorders cost 42 billion each year in
    health care, lost wages, and lost productivity

5
Anxiety Disorders
  • Six disorders
  • Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
  • Phobias
  • Panic disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Acute stress disorder
  • Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

6
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
  • Characterized by excessive anxiety under most
    circumstances and worry about practically
    anything
  • Vague, intense concerns and fearfulness
  • Often called free-floating anxiety
  • Danger not a factor
  • Symptoms include restlessness, easy fatigue,
    irritability, muscle tension, and/or sleep
    disturbance
  • Symptoms last at least six months

7
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8
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
  • The disorder is common in Western society
  • Affects 3 of the population in any given year
    and 6 at sometime during their lives
  • Usually first appears in childhood or adolescence
  • Women are diagnosed more often than men by 21
    ratio
  • Various theories have been offered to explain the
    development of the disorder

9
GAD The Sociocultural Perspective
  • According to this theory, GAD is most likely to
    develop in people faced with social conditions
    that truly are dangerous
  • Research supports this theory (example Three
    Mile Island in 1979)
  • One of the most powerful forms of societal stress
    is poverty
  • Why? Run-down communities, higher crime rates,
    fewer educational and job opportunities, and
    greater risk for health problems
  • As would be predicted by the model, there are
    higher rates of GAD in lower SES groups

10
GAD The Sociocultural Perspective
  • Since race is closely tied to income and job
    opportunities in the U.S., it is also tied to the
    prevalence of GAD
  • In any given year, 6 of African Americans and
    3.1 of Caucasians suffer from GAD
  • African American women have highest rates (6.6)

11
GAD The Sociocultural Perspective
  • Although poverty and other social pressures may
    create a climate for GAD, other factors are
    clearly at work
  • How do we know this?
  • Most people living in dangerous environments do
    not develop GAD
  • Other models attempt to explain why some people
    develop the disorder and others do not

12
GAD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Freud believed that all children experience
    anxiety
  • Realistic anxiety when faced with actual danger
  • Neurotic anxiety when prevented from expressing
    id impulses
  • Moral anxiety when punished for expressing id
    impulses
  • One can use ego defense mechanisms to control
    these forms of anxiety, but when they dont work
    or when anxiety is too highGAD develops

13
GAD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Todays psychodynamic theorists often disagree
    with specific aspects of Freuds explanation
  • Researchers have found some support for the
    psychodynamic perspective
  • People with GAD are particularly likely to use
    defense mechanisms (especially repression)
  • Children who were severely punished for
    expressing id impulses have higher levels of
    anxiety later in life
  • Are these results proof of the models
    validity?

14
GAD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Not necessarily there are alternative
    explanations of the data
  • Discomfort with painful memories or forgetting
    in therapy is not necessarily defensive
  • Also, some data actually contradict the model
  • Many (if not most) GAD clients report normal
    childhood upbringings

15
GAD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Psychodynamic therapies
  • Use same general techniques for treating all
    dysfunction
  • Free association
  • Therapist interpretation
  • Specific treatments for GAD
  • Freudians focus less on fear and more on control
    of id
  • Object-relations therapists help patients
    identify and settle early relationship conflicts

16
GAD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Psychodynamic therapies
  • Overall, controlled research has not consistently
    shown that psychodynamic approaches are helpful
    in treating cases of GAD
  • Short-term dynamic therapy may be beneficial in
    some cases

17
GAD The Humanistic Perspective
  • Theorists propose that GAD, like other
    psychological disorders, arises when people stop
    looking at themselves honestly and acceptingly
  • This view is best illustrated by Carl Rogerss
    explanation
  • Lack of unconditional positive regard in
    childhood leads to conditions of worth (harsh
    self-standards)
  • These threatening self-judgments break through
    and cause anxiety, setting the stage for GAD to
    develop

18
GAD The Humanistic Perspective
  • Therapy based on this model is client-centered
    and focuses on creating an accepting environment
    where clients can experience themselves
  • Although case reports have been positive,
    controlled studies have only sometimes found
    client-centered therapy to be more effective than
    placebo or no therapy
  • Only limited support has been found for Rogerss
    explanation of causal factors

19
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Theorists believe that psychological problems are
    caused by maladaptive and dysfunctional thinking
  • Since GAD is characterized by excessive worry
    (cognition), this model is a good start

20
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Theory GAD is caused by maladaptive assumptions
  • Albert Ellis identified basic irrational
    assumptions
  • It is necessary for humans to be loved by
    everyone
  • It is catastrophic when things are not as one
    wants them to be
  • If something is dangerous, a person should be
    terribly concerned and dwell on the possibility
    that it will occur
  • One should be competent in all domains to be a
    worthwhile person
  • When these assumptions are applied to everyday
    life, GAD may develop

21
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Aaron Beck is another cognitive theorist
  • Those with GAD hold unrealistic silent
    assumptions that imply imminent danger
  • Any strange situation is dangerous
  • A situation/person is unsafe until proven safe
  • Research supports the presence of these types of
    assumptions in GAD, particularly about
    dangerousness

22
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • What kinds of people are likely to have
    exaggerated expectations of danger?
  • Those whose lives have been filled with
    unpredictable negative events
  • To avoid being blindsided, they try to predict
    events they look everywhere for danger (and
    therefore see danger everywhere)
  • Theory still under investigation

23
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Second-Generation Cognitive Explanations
  • In recent years, two promising explanations have
    emerged
  • Metacognitive theory
  • Developed by Wells holds that the most
    problematic assumptions in GAD are the
    individuals beliefs about worrying itself
  • Avoidance theory
  • Developed by Borkovec holds that worrying serves
    a positive function for those with GAD by
    reducing unusually high levels of bodily arousal
  • Both theories have received considerable research
    support

24
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Two kinds of cognitive therapy
  • Changing maladaptive assumptions
  • Based on the work of Ellis and Beck
  • Helping clients understand the special role that
    worrying plays, and changing their views about it

25
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapies
  • Changing maladaptive assumptions
  • Elliss rational-emotive therapy (RET)
  • Point out irrational assumptions
  • Suggest more appropriate assumptions
  • Assign related homework
  • Limited research, but findings are positive
  • Becks cognitive therapy
  • Similar to his depression treatment (see Chapter
    9)
  • Shown to be somewhat helpful in reducing anxiety
    to tolerable levels

26
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapies
  • Focusing on worrying
  • Therapists begin with psychoeducation about
    worrying and GAD
  • Assign self-monitoring of somatic arousal and
    cognitive responses
  • As therapy progresses, clients become
    increasingly skilled at identifying their
    worrying and its counterproductivity

27
GAD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapies
  • Focusing on worrying
  • With continued practice, clients are expected to
    see the world as less threatening to adopt more
    constructive ways of coping and to worry less
  • Research has begun to indicate that a
    concentrated focus on worrying is a helpful
    addition to traditional cognitive therapy

28
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • Theory holds that GAD is caused by biological
    factors
  • Supported by family pedigree studies
  • Blood relatives more likely to have GAD (15)
    than general population (6)
  • The closer the relative, the greater the
    likelihood
  • Issue of shared environment

29
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • GABA inactivity
  • 1950s Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax) found to
    reduce anxiety
  • Why?
  • Neurons have specific receptors (lock and key)
  • Benzodiazepine receptors ordinarily receive
    gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA, a common NT in the
    brain)
  • GABA is an inhibitory messenger when received,
    it causes a neuron to stop firing

30
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • In the normal fear reaction
  • Key neurons fire more rapidly, creating a general
    state of excitability experienced as fear or
    anxiety
  • A feedback system is triggered brain and body
    activities work to reduce excitability
  • Some neurons release GABA to inhibit neuron
    firing, thereby reducing experience of fear or
    anxiety
  • Problems with the feedback system are believed to
    cause GAD
  • Possible reasons GABA too low, too few
    receptors, ineffective receptors

31
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • Promising (but problematic) explanation
  • Other NTs also bind to GABA receptors
  • Research conducted on lab animals raises
    question is fear really fear?
  • Issue of causal relationships
  • Do physiological events CAUSE anxiety? How can we
    know? What are alternative explanations?

32
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • Biological treatments
  • Antianxiety drugs
  • Pre-1950s barbiturates (sedative-hypnotics)
  • Post-1950s benzodiazepines
  • Provide temporary, modest relief
  • Rebound anxiety with withdrawal and cessation of
    use
  • Physical dependence is possible
  • Undesirable effects (drowsiness, etc.)
  • Multiply effects of other drugs (especially
    alcohol)
  • 1980s buspirone (BuSpar)
  • Different receptors, same effectiveness, fewer
    problems

33
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • Biological treatments
  • Relaxation training
  • Theory physical relaxation leads to
    psychological relaxation
  • Research indicates that relaxation training is
    more effective than placebo or no treatment
  • Best when used in combination with cognitive
    therapy or biofeedback

34
GAD The Biological Perspective
  • Biological treatments
  • Biofeedback
  • Therapist uses electrical signals from the body
    to train people to control physiological
    processes
  • Electromyograph (EMG) is the most widely used
    provides feedback about muscle tension
  • Found to be most effective when used as an
    adjunct to other methods for the treatment of
    certain medical problems (headache, back pain,
    etc.)

35
Phobias
  • From the Greek word for fear
  • Formal names are also often from the Greek (see
    Box 5-2)
  • Persistent and unreasonable fears of particular
    objects, activities, or situations
  • Phobic people often avoid the object or thoughts
    about it

36
Phobias
  • We all have some fears at some points in our
    lives this is a normal and common experience
  • How do phobias differ from these normal
    experiences?
  • More intense fear
  • Greater desire to avoid the feared object or
    situation
  • Distress that interferes with functioning

37
Phobias
  • Most phobias are categorized as specific
  • Also two broader kinds
  • Social phobia
  • Agoraphobia

38
Specific Phobias
  • Persistent fears of specific objects or
    situations
  • When exposed to the object or situation,
    sufferers experience immediate fear
  • Most common phobias of specific animals or
    insects, heights, enclosed spaces, thunderstorms,
    and blood

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40
Specific Phobias
  • 9 of the U.S. population have symptoms in any
    given year
  • 12 develop a specific phobia at some point in
    their lives
  • Many suffer from more than one phobia at a time
  • Women outnumber men 21
  • Prevalence differs across racial and ethnic
    minority groups
  • Vast majority do NOT seek treatment

41
Social Phobias
  • Severe, persistent, and unreasonable fears of
    social or performance situations in which
    embarrassment may occur
  • May be narrow talking, performing, eating, or
    writing in public
  • May be broad general fear of functioning
    inadequately in front of others
  • In both cases, people rate themselves as
    performing less adequately than they actually did

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43
Social Phobias
  • Can greatly interfere with functioning
  • Often kept a secret
  • Affect 7 of U.S. population in any given year
  • Women outnumber men 32
  • Often begin in childhood and may persist for many
    years

44
What Causes Phobias?
  • Each model offers explanations, but evidence
    tends to support the behavioral explanations
  • Phobias develop through conditioning
  • Once fears are acquired, they are continued
    because feared objects are avoided
  • Behaviorists propose a classical conditioning
    model

45
Classical Conditioning of Phobia
UCR Fear
UCS Entrapment
UCS Entrapment
UCR Fear
Running water

CR Fear
CS Running water
46
What Causes Phobias?
  • Other behavioral explanations
  • Phobias develop through modeling
  • Observation and imitation
  • Phobias are maintained through avoidance
  • Phobias may develop into GAD when a person
    acquires a large number of phobias
  • Process of stimulus generalization responses to
    one stimulus are also elicited by similar stimuli

47
What Causes Phobias?
  • Behavioral explanations have received some
    empirical support
  • Classical conditioning study involving Little
    Albert
  • Modeling studies
  • Bandura, confederates, buzz, and shock
  • Research conclusion is that phobias CAN be
    acquired in these ways, but there is no evidence
    that this is how the disorder is ordinarily
    acquired

48
What Causes Phobias?
  • A behavioral-evolutionary explanation
  • Some phobias are much more common than others

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50
What Causes Phobias?
  • A behavioral-evolutionary explanation
  • Theorists argue that there is a species-specific
    biological predisposition to develop certain
    fears
  • Called preparedness humans are more prepared
    to develop phobias around certain objects or
    situations
  • Model explains why some phobias (snakes, heights)
    are more common than others (grass, meat)
  • Unknown if these predispositions are due to
    evolutionary or environmental factors

51
How Are Phobias Treated?
  • Surveys reveal that 19 of those with specific
    phobia and 25 of those with social phobia
    currently are in treatment
  • Each model offers treatment approaches
  • Behavioral techniques (exposure treatments) are
    most widely used, especially for specific phobias
  • Shown to be highly effective
  • Fare better in head-to-head comparisons than
    other approaches
  • Include desensitization, flooding, and modeling

52
Treatments for Specific Phobias
  • Systematic desensitization
  • Technique developed by Joseph Wolpe
  • Teach relaxation skills
  • Create fear hierarchy
  • Sufferers learn to relax while facing feared
    objects
  • Since relaxation is incompatible with fear, the
    relaxation response is thought to substitute for
    the fear response
  • Several types
  • In vivo desensitization (live)
  • Covert desensitization (imaginal)

53
Treatments for Specific Phobias
  • Other behavioral treatments
  • Flooding
  • Forced nongradual exposure
  • Modeling
  • Therapist confronts the feared object while the
    fearful person observes
  • Clinical research supports each of these
    treatments
  • The key to success is ACTUAL contact with the
    feared object or situation

54
Treatments for Social Phobias
  • Treatments only recently successful
  • Two components must be addressed
  • Overwhelming social fear
  • Address fears behaviorally with exposure
  • Lack of social skills
  • Social skills and assertiveness trainings have
    proved helpful

55
Treatments for Social Phobias
  • Unlike specific phobias, social phobias respond
    well to medication (particularly antidepression
    drugs)
  • Several types of psychotherapy have proved at
    least as effective as medication
  • People treated with psychotherapy are less likely
    to relapse than people treated with drugs alone
  • One psychological approach is exposure therapy,
    either in an individual or group setting
  • Cognitive therapies have also been widely used

56
Treatments for Social Phobias
  • Another treatment option is social skills
    training, a combination of several behavioral
    techniques to help people improve their social
    functioning
  • Therapist provides feedback and reinforcement
  • No single treatment approach is consistently
    helpful or superior to the others
  • Results from using a combination of approaches
    seem to be most encouraging

57
Panic Disorder
  • Panic, an extreme anxiety reaction, can result
    when a real threat suddenly emerges
  • The experience of panic attacks, however, is
    different
  • Panic attacks are periodic, short bouts of panic
    that occur suddenly, reach a peak, and pass
  • Sufferers often fear they will die, go crazy, or
    lose control
  • Attacks happen in the absence of a real threat

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59
Panic Disorder
  • Anyone can experience a panic attack, but some
    people have panic attacks repeatedly,
    unexpectedly, and without apparent reason
  • Diagnosis panic disorder
  • Sufferers also experience dysfunctional changes
    in thinking and behavior as a result of the
    attacks
  • Example sufferer worries persistently about
    having an attack plans behavior around
    possibility of future attack

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Panic Disorder
  • Often (but not always) accompanied by agoraphobia
  • From the Greek fear of the marketplace
  • Afraid to leave home and travel to locations from
    which escape might be difficult or help
    unavailable
  • Intensity may fluctuate
  • There has only recently been a recognition of the
    link between agoraphobia and panic attacks (or
    panic-like symptoms)

62
Panic Disorder
  • Two diagnoses panic disorder with agoraphobia
    panic disorder without agoraphobia
  • 3 of U.S. population affected in a given year
  • 5 of U.S. population affected at some point in
    their lives
  • Likely to develop in late adolescence and early
    adulthood
  • Women are twice as likely as men to be affected
  • Approximately 35 of those with panic disorder
    are in treatment

63
Panic Disorder The Biological Perspective
  • In the 1960s, it was recognized that people with
    panic disorder were not helped by
    benzodiazepines, but were helped by
    antidepressants
  • Researchers worked backward from their
    understanding of antidepressant drugs

64
Panic Disorder The Biological Perspective
  • What biological factors contribute to panic
    disorder?
  • NT at work is norepinephrine
  • Irregular in people with panic attacks
  • Research suggests that panic reactions are
    related to changes in norepinephrine activity in
    the locus ceruleus
  • Although norepinephrine is clearly linked to
    panic disorder, what goes wrong isnt exactly
    understood
  • May be excessive activity, deficient activity, or
    some other defect
  • Other NTs and brain circuits seem to be involved

65
Panic Disorder The Biological Perspective
  • It is also unclear why some people have such
    abnormalities in norepinephrine activity
  • Inherited biological predisposition is one
    possible reason
  • If so, prevalence should be (and is) greater
    among close relatives
  • Among monozygotic (MZ, or identical) twins 24
  • Among dizygotic (DZ, or fraternal) twins 11
  • Issue is still open to debate

66
Panic DisorderThe Biological Perspective
  • Drug therapies
  • Antidepressants are effective at preventing or
    reducing panic attacks
  • Function at norepinephrine receptors in the panic
    brain circuit
  • Bring at least some improvement to 80 of
    patients with panic disorder
  • 50 recover markedly or fully
  • Require maintenance of drug therapy otherwise
    relapse rates are high
  • Some benzodiazepines (especially Xanax
    alprazolam) have also proved helpful

67
Panic Disorder The Biological Perspective
  • Drug therapies
  • Both antidepressants and benzodiazepines are also
    helpful in treating panic disorder with
    agoraphobia
  • Break the cycle of attack, anticipation, and fear
  • It is important to note that when drug therapy is
    stopped, symptoms may return
  • Combination treatment (medications behavioral
    exposure therapy) may be more effective than
    either treatment alone

68
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive theorists and practitioners recognize
    that biological factors are only part of the
    cause of panic attacks
  • In their view, full panic reactions are
    experienced only by people who misinterpret
    bodily events
  • Cognitive treatment is aimed at correcting such
    misinterpretations

69
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Misinterpreting bodily sensations
  • Panic-prone people may be overly sensitive to
    certain bodily sensations and may misinterpret
    them as signs of a medical catastrophe this
    leads to panic
  • Why might some people be prone to such
    misinterpretations?
  • Experience more frequent or intense bodily
    sensations
  • Poor coping skills
  • Lack of social support
  • Unpredictable childhoods
  • Overly protective parents

70
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Misinterpreting bodily sensations
  • Panic-prone people have a high degree of anxiety
    sensitivity
  • They focus on bodily sensations much of the time,
    are unable to assess the sensations logically,
    and interpret them as potentially harmful
  • Examples include overbreathing or
    hyperventilation, excitement, fullness in the
    abdomen, acute anger, and heart palpitations

71
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapy
  • Attempts to correct peoples misinterpretations
    of their bodily sensations
  • Step 1 Educate clients
  • About panic in general
  • About the causes of bodily sensations
  • About their tendency to misinterpret the
    sensations
  • Step 2 Teach clients to apply more accurate
    interpretations (especially when stressed)
  • Step 3 Teach clients skills for coping with
    anxiety
  • Examples relaxation, breathing

72
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapy
  • May also use biological challenge procedures to
    induce panic sensations
  • Induce physical sensations which cause feelings
    of panic
  • Jump up and down
  • Run up a flight of steps
  • Practice coping strategies and making more
    accurate interpretations

73
Panic Disorder The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapy is often helpful in panic
    disorder
  • 85 of treated patients are panic-free for two
    years compared with 13 of control subjects
  • Only sometimes helpful for panic disorder with
    agoraphobia
  • At least as helpful as antidepressants
  • Combination therapy may be most effective
  • Still under investigation

74
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • Made up of two components
  • Obsessions
  • Persistent thoughts, ideas, impulses, or images
    that seem to invade a persons consciousness
  • Compulsions
  • Repeated and rigid behaviors or mental acts that
    people feel they must perform to prevent or
    reduce anxiety

75
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • Diagnosis may be called for when symptoms
  • Feel excessive or unreasonable
  • Cause great distress
  • Consume considerable time
  • Interfere with daily functions

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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • Classified as an anxiety disorder because
    obsessions cause anxiety, while compulsions are
    aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety
  • Anxiety rises if obsessions or compulsions are
    avoided
  • 2 of U.S. population has OCD in a given year
    between 2 and 3 over a lifetime
  • Ratio of women to men is 11
  • It is estimated that more than 40 of those with
    OCD seek treatment

78
What Are the Features of Obsessions and
Compulsions?
  • Obsessions
  • Thoughts that feel intrusive and foreign
  • Attempts to ignore or avoid them trigger anxiety
  • Take various forms
  • Wishes
  • Impulses
  • Images
  • Ideas
  • Doubts
  • Have common themes
  • Dirt/contamination
  • Violence and aggression
  • Orderliness
  • Religion
  • Sexuality

79
What Are the Features of Obsessions and
Compulsions?
  • Compulsions
  • Voluntary behaviors or mental acts
  • Feel mandatory/unstoppable
  • Person may recognize that behaviors are
    irrational
  • Believe, though, that catastrophe will occur if
    they dont perform the compulsive acts
  • Performing behaviors reduces anxiety
  • ONLY FOR A SHORT TIME!
  • Behaviors often develop into rituals

80
What Are the Features of Obsessions and
Compulsions?
  • Compulsions
  • Common forms/themes
  • Cleaning
  • Checking
  • Order or balance
  • Touching, verbal, and/or counting

81
What Are the Features of Obsessions and
Compulsions?
  • Are obsessions and compulsions related?
  • Most (not all) people with OCD experience both
  • Compulsive acts often occur in response to
    obsessive thoughts
  • Compulsions seem to represent a yielding to
    obsessions
  • Compulsions also sometimes serve to help control
    obsessions

82
What Are the Features of Obsessions and
Compulsions?
  • Are obsessions and compulsions related?
  • Many with OCD are concerned that they will act on
    their obsessions
  • Most of these concerns are unfounded
  • Compulsions usually do not lead to violence or
    immoral acts

83
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • OCD was once among the least understood of the
    psychological disorders
  • In recent years, however, researchers have begun
    to learn more about it
  • The most influential explanations are from the
    psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and
    biological models

84
OCD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Anxiety disorders develop when children come to
    fear their id impulses and use ego defense
    mechanisms to lessen their anxiety
  • OCD differs from anxiety disorders in that the
    battle is not unconscious it is played out in
    explicit thoughts and action
  • Id impulses obsessive thoughts
  • Ego defenses counter-thoughts or compulsive
    actions
  • At its core, OCD is related to aggressive
    impulses and the competing need to control them

85
OCD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • The battle between the id and the ego
  • Three ego defenses mechanisms are common
  • Isolation disown disturbing thoughts
  • Undoing perform acts to cancel out thoughts
  • Reaction formation take on lifestyle in contrast
    to unacceptable impulses
  • Freud believed that OCD was related to the anal
    stage of development
  • Period of intense conflict between id and ego
  • Not all psychodynamic theorists agree

86
OCD The Psychodynamic Perspective
  • Psychodynamic therapies
  • Goals are to uncover and overcome underlying
    conflicts and defenses
  • Main techniques are free association and
    interpretation
  • Research evidence is poor
  • Some therapists now prefer to treat these
    patients with short-term psychodynamic therapies

87
OCD The Behavioral Perspective
  • Behaviorists concentrate on explaining and
    treating compulsions rather than obsessions
  • Although the behavioral explanation of OCD has
    received little support, behavioral treatments
    for compulsive behaviors have been very successful

88
OCD The Behavioral Perspective
  • Learning by chance
  • People happen upon compulsions randomly
  • In a fearful situation, they happen to perform a
    particular act (washing hands)
  • When the threat lifts, they associate the
    improvement with the random act
  • After repeated associations, they believe the
    compulsion is changing the situation
  • Bringing luck, warding away evil, etc.
  • The act becomes a key method to avoiding or
    reducing anxiety

89
OCD The Behavioral Perspective
  • Key investigator Stanley Rachman
  • Compulsions do appear to be rewarded by an
    eventual decrease in anxiety
  • Studies provide no evidence of the learning of
    compulsions

90
OCD The Behavioral Perspective
  • Behavioral therapy
  • Exposure and response prevention (ERP)
  • Clients are repeatedly exposed to
    anxiety-provoking stimuli and prevented from
    responding with compulsions
  • Therapists often model the behavior while the
    client watches
  • Homework is an important component
  • Treatment is offered in individual and group
    settings
  • Treatment provides significant, long-lasting
    improvements for most patients
  • However, as many as 25 fail to improve at all
    and the approach is of limited help to those with
    obsessions but no compulsions

91
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive theory begins by pointing out that
    everyone has repetitive, unwanted, and intrusive
    thoughts
  • People with OCD blame themselves for normal
    (although repetitive and intrusive) thoughts and
    expect that terrible things will happen as a
    result

92
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Overreacting to unwanted thoughts
  • To avoid such negative outcomes, they attempt to
    neutralize their thoughts with actions (or other
    thoughts)
  • Neutralizing thoughts/actions may include
  • Seeking reassurance
  • Thinking good thoughts
  • Washing
  • Checking

93
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • When a neutralizing action reduces anxiety, it is
    reinforced
  • Client becomes more convinced that the thoughts
    are dangerous
  • As fear of thoughts increases, the number of
    thoughts increases

94
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • If everyone has intrusive thoughts, why do only
    some people develop OCD?
  • People with OCD tend
  • To be more depressed than others
  • To have higher standards of morality and conduct
  • To believe thoughts are equal to actions and are
    capable of bringing harm
  • To believe that they can and should have perfect
    control over their thoughts and behaviors

95
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive therapies
  • Focus on the cognitive processes that help to
    produce and maintain obsessive thoughts and
    compulsive acts
  • May include
  • Psychoeducation
  • Habituation training

96
OCD The Cognitive Perspective
  • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
  • Research suggests that a combination of the
    cognitive and behavioral models often is more
    effective than either intervention alone
  • These treatments typically include
    psychoeducation and exposure and response
    prevention exercises

97
OCD The Biological Perspective
  • Family pedigree studies provided the first clues
    that OCD may be linked in part to biological
    factors
  • Studies of twins found a 53 concordance rate in
    identical twins versus 23 in fraternal twins
  • Currently, more direct genetic studies are being
    conducted to try to pinpoint the cause of the
    genetic predisposition

98
OCD The Biological Perspective
  • Two additional lines of research
  • Role of NT serotonin
  • Evidence that serotonin-based antidepressants
    reduce OCD symptoms
  • Brain abnormalities
  • OCD linked to orbital region of frontal cortex
    and caudate nuclei
  • Frontal cortex and caudate nuclei compose brain
    circuit that converts sensory information into
    thoughts and actions
  • Either area may be too active, letting through
    troublesome thoughts and actions

99
OCD The Biological Perspective
  • Some research provides evidence that these two
    lines may be connected
  • Serotonin plays a very active role in the
    operation of the orbital region and the caudate
    nuclei
  • Low serotonin activity might interfere with the
    proper functioning of these brain parts

100
OCD The Biological Perspective
  • Biological therapies
  • Serotonin-based antidepressants
  • clomipramine (Anafranil), fluoxetine (Prozac),
    fluvoxamine
  • Bring improvement to 5080 of those with OCD
  • Relapse occurs if medication is stopped
  • Research suggests that combination therapy
    (medication cognitive behavioral therapy
    approaches) may be most effective
  • May have same effect on the brain
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