Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

Fear is a response to a known external definite threat, while anxiety is a response to a vague, uncertain, internal conflict.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about various things. Other anxiety disorders typically focus on specific triggers or situations.

A phobia is a persistent and excessive fear of a specific object, activity, or situation. Prepared fears are fears that humans are biologically predisposed to acquire, likely due to evolutionary factors.

Exposure therapy involves gradual exposure to the feared object or situation in a safe environment to reduce anxiety. It helps break the association between the trigger and the fear response.

Systematic desensitization is a type of exposure therapy that combines relaxation techniques with gradual exposure to feared stimuli. It involves creating a fear hierarchy and progressively working through it while using relaxation techniques.

Systematic desensitization pairs relaxation techniques with gradual exposure to feared stimuli whereas exposure therapy confronts feared stimuli directly.

Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior is strengthened by removing or avoiding a negative outcome or stimulus. In anxiety disorders, avoiding feared situations reduces anxiety, reinforcing the avoidance behavior.

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy used to treat OCD. It involves exposing individuals to their obsessions and preventing them from engaging in compulsive behaviors.

A stressor is an external event or situation that triggers a stress response, while stress is the internal reaction or experience in response to the stressor.

Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) both involve symptoms following a traumatic event, but ASD is shorter in duration (3 days to 1 month) whereas PTSD, the symptoms persist for longer than one month.