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Integrative Anxiety Disorder

Decent Essays

According to Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach (2015), anxiety is defined as a “negative mood state characterized by bodily symptoms of physical tension and apprehension about the future” (Barlow, 2015). Anxiety is a set of behaviors, such as looking worried, anxious or fidgety, or a physiological response in the brain that is reflected by increased heart rate and muscle tension (Barlow et al., 2015). Within the spectrum of anxiety disorder, there are many disorders that are classified under anxiety, such as panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In regards to this essay, the anxiety disorders of obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic …show more content…

The symptoms of OCD are broken into the symptoms for obsession and the symptoms for compulsions. Some symptoms for obsession are fears of contamination, fears of harm to one self or others, fear of violent images, sexual thoughts or images, aggressive sexual behaviours, sexual obsessions, concern with right and wrong, hoarding, and perfectionism. To counter these obsessions, some symptoms of compulsion are excessive hand washing or showering, excessive cleaning, constant checking, repeating activities in multiples, repetitive body movements, counting, arranging and ordering (What is OCD?, 2014). In contrast to OCD, the symptoms for PTSD are quite different. Some symptoms include feeling detached from others, feeling detached from feelings, flashbacks, nightmares, distressing thoughts of the experience, avoidance of thoughts and feeling about the experience and avoidance of situations or activities similar to the experience (POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, 2007). Lastly, the symptoms for GAD are also considerably different from OCD and PTSD. Some symptoms of GAD are feelings of restlessness, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, sleep difficulties, nausea, diarrhea and sweating (GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER, 2007). Overall, the …show more content…

From different studies of OCD, PSTD, and GAD, each disorder has different factors that influence that specific disorder but each disorder begins with generalized psychological and generalized biological vulnerabilities (Barlow et al., 2015), possible genetic influence and some type of brain dysfunction. OCD and GAD share the most similar causations between the three disorders. These disorders both have generalized psychological and biological vulnerabilities that increase in vulnerability when life events are stressful (Barlow et al., 2015). Biological vulnerabilities that OCD and GAD share are genetic factors. With these similarities, there are also slight differences between the psychological contributions of OCD and GAD. The psychological vulnerabilities of individuals with OCD are a constant belief that their thoughts are unacceptable (Barlow et al., 2015), while the psychological vulnerabilities for GAD are uncertainty, misguided beliefs about worry, poor problem solving and avoidance (Barlow et al., 2015). In contrast, although PTSD begins with generalized psychological and biological vulnerabilities like OCD and GAD, the contributions are not cause by the stress of life events. The psychological contributions for PTSD are caused by traumatic events, threatened death or serious injury

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