Food for Thought

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

Albert Einstein


Anxiety Disorders
Trauma PDF Print E-mail
Trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder. It is an emotional response to terrible events that can involve a threat to life, safety, or a situation that leaves you feeling frightened and helpless with or without involving physical harm. Shock and denial typically occur immediately after the event. Trauma leaves you stuck and may make it difficult to move on in at least some aspect of your life. If you've experienced a traumatic event, you may struggle with upsetting emotions, frightening memories or a constant sense of danger that you can't escape. You may also feel numb, disconnected or unable to trust other people.

Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by one-time events, such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster or a violent attack. Trauma can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood or struggling with cancer. A number of risk factors make people susceptible to emotional and psychological trauma. People are more likely to be traumatized by a stressful experience if they’re already under a heavy stress load or have recently suffered a series of losses. People are also more likely to be traumatized by a new situation if they’ve been traumatized before, especially if the earlier trauma occurred in childhood.

Traumatic experiences in childhood can have severe and long-term effects. Children who have been traumatized see the world as a frightening and dangerous place. When childhood trauma is not resolved, a fundamental sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood. This sets the stage for further trauma. Childhood trauma results from anything that disrupts a child’s sense of safety and security, including
  • An unstable or unsafe environment
  • Sexual, physical,or verbal abuse
  • Separation from a parent
  • Neglect
  • Domestic violence
  • Serious illness
  • Intrusive medical procedures
  • Bullying

Following a traumatic event, most people experience a wide range of physical and emotional reactions. These are NORMAL reactions to ABNORMAL events. The symptoms may last for days, weeks, or even months after the trauma ended.                   

    Emotional symptoms
  • Shock, denial, or disbelief                               
  • Confusion, difficulty concentrating
  • Anger, irritability, mood swings                        
  • Anxiety and fear
  • Guilt, shame, self-blame                                 
  • Withdrawing from others
  • Feeling sad or hopeless                                  
  • Feeling disconnected or numb
    Physical symptoms
  • Insomnia or nightmares                                   
  • Fatigue
  • Being startled easily                                       
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Racing heartbeat                                            
  • Edginess and agitation
  • Aches and pains                                            
  • Muscle tension
After you’ve been through a traumatic experience, it can take a while to get over the pain and feel safe again. Treatment and support can speed your recovery from emotional and psychological trauma. Just remember, whether the traumatic event happened years ago or yesterday, you can heal and move on.
 
Social Phobia Disorder PDF Print E-mail

The essential features of Social Phobia involves persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations, where the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to scrutiny by others. The person fears that her or his actions will result in embarrassment or humiliation.  Exposure to the feared social situation provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a conditionally bound panic attack. The social situation is either avoided or endured with intense anxiety. The avoidance of, or anxiety in the feared situation interferes with the person's functioning, or the person recognizes that her or his anxiety is excessive.
 
Specific Phobia Disorder PDF Print E-mail

Specific Phobia involves excessive fear of a specific object or situation. Exposure to the phobic stimulus provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a conditionally bound panic attack.  The phobic situation is either avoided or endured with intense anxiety. The avoidance of, or anxiety in the feared situation interferes with the person's functioning, or the person recognizes that her or his anxiety is excessive.
 
Agoraphobia Without History of Panic Disorder PDF Print E-mail

Agoraphobia Without History of Panic Disorder is characterized by agoraphobia related to the fear of developing panic-like symptoms (e.g. dizziness or diarrhea) without a history of unexpected panic attacks.
 
Panic Disorder with/without Agoraphobia Disorder PDF Print E-mail

Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia is diagnosed when there are both recurrent unexpected panic attacks and agoraphobia. 

 

Panic Disorder without Agoraphobia is diagnosed when there are recurrent unexpected panic attacks, and at least one of the attacks has been followed by one month or more of:

  • Persistence concern about another attack
  • Worry about the implications or consequences of an attack
  • Significant change in behavior related to the attacks
 
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder PDF Print E-mail

OCD involves either obsessions or compulsion. Obsessions are persistent thoughts, impulses or images that are intrusive and cause distress. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing or checking) or mental acts ( e.g., counting) that the person feels driven to perform. These behaviors or mental act are an attempt to prevent or reduce distress, or to prevent some dreaded situation. These obsessions or compulsions cause stress for the person and interfere with daily functioning. 
 
Reactive Attachment Disorder PDF Print E-mail

Reactive Attachment Disorder is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness in most contexts, beginning before age 5 as evidenced by either:

  • Persistent failure to initiate or respond in a developmentally appropriate fashion to most social interactions, as manifest by excessively inhibited, hyper vigilant, or highly ambivalent and contradictory responses (e.g. the child may respond to caregivers with a mixture of approach, avoidance, and resistance to comfort, or may exhibit frozen watchfulness)
  • Diffuse attachments as manifest by indiscriminate sociability with marked inability to exhibit appropriate selective attachment (e.g. excessive familiarity with relative strangers or lack of selectivity in choice of attachment figures)
 
Separation Anxiety Disorder PDF Print E-mail

This disorder is characterized by a developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety around being away from home or away from the person(s) to whom the individual is attached. The duration of the symptom is at least four weeks, and onset must be before age 18. Three or more symptoms must be present, including:

  • Distress when separation from home or major attachment figure occurs
  • Excessive worry about losing an attachment figure or harm befalling that person
  • Excessive worry that an even will cause separation
  • Reluctance to go to school or elsewhere
  • Reluctance to be alone
  • Reluctance to go to sleep without being near the attachment figure
  • Nightmares about separation
  • Complaints of physical symptoms when separation occurs or is anticipated
 
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) PDF Print E-mail

PTSD can be diagnosed when a person has been exposed to a traumatic event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. PTSD involves a cluster of three broad categories for the duration of over a month:

  • Persistent recollection of a trauma
  • Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness
  • Persistent symptoms of increased arousal
 
Generalized Anxiety Disorder PDF Print E-mail

GAD is characterized by at least six months of pervasive and excessive worry about a number of events or activities (e.g., work, social relations, etc.). The person also has difficulty controlling the worry. The anxiety and worry are associated with at least three symptoms that include:

  • Restlessness
  • Fatigue
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Irritability
  • Muscle tension
  • Sleep disturbance