This cheat sheet summarizes the major anxiety disorder subtypes commonly taught in college psychology courses. It helps students compare disorders that share fear, worry, avoidance, and physiological arousal but differ in triggers and diagnostic focus. Clear subtype distinctions are important for exams, case examples, and understanding clinical assessment.
The reference emphasizes practical diagnostic cues rather than replacing professional diagnosis.
Key Facts
- Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive anxiety and worry occurring more days than not for at least 6 months about multiple events or activities.
- Panic disorder involves recurrent unexpected panic attacks plus at least 1 month of persistent concern about more attacks or maladaptive behavior change.
- A panic attack is an abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort that peaks within minutes and includes symptoms such as palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, or fear of dying.
- Agoraphobia involves marked fear or anxiety about at least two situations, such as public transportation, open spaces, enclosed places, crowds, or being outside home alone.
- Specific phobia involves marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation, such as animals, heights, blood, injections, or flying.
- Social anxiety disorder involves marked fear of social situations where the person may be scrutinized, embarrassed, rejected, or negatively evaluated.
- Selective mutism involves consistent failure to speak in specific social situations despite speaking in other settings, and it usually begins in childhood.
- For many anxiety disorders, symptoms are typically persistent for 6 months or more and must cause clinically significant distress or impairment.
Vocabulary
- Anxiety disorder
- A mental disorder involving excessive fear, anxiety, or avoidance that causes distress or impairment beyond expected developmental or cultural norms.
- Fear
- An emotional response to an immediate perceived threat, often linked to fight, flight, or freeze reactions.
- Anxiety
- A future-oriented state of apprehension, worry, or tension about possible threat or negative outcomes.
- Avoidance
- Behavior that reduces contact with feared situations or sensations and often maintains anxiety over time.
- Panic attack
- A sudden episode of intense fear or discomfort that rises quickly and includes strong physical and cognitive symptoms.
- Clinically significant distress
- Emotional suffering or life interference severe enough to matter in diagnosis, treatment planning, or daily functioning.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Confusing panic attacks with panic disorder is wrong because panic attacks can occur in many disorders, while panic disorder requires recurrent unexpected attacks plus ongoing concern or behavior change.
- Labeling all social nervousness as social anxiety disorder is wrong because the diagnosis requires marked fear, avoidance or endurance with distress, and significant impairment.
- Treating agoraphobia as simply fear of open spaces is wrong because it can involve public transportation, crowds, enclosed places, being outside alone, or difficulty escaping.
- Ignoring duration and impairment is wrong because anxiety symptoms usually must persist and cause clinically significant distress or dysfunction to meet disorder criteria.
- Assuming specific phobia is mild because the fear is narrow is wrong because even a single phobic trigger can severely restrict medical care, travel, school, or work.
Practice Questions
- 1 A college student worries excessively about grades, finances, family health, and future plans most days for 8 months and has muscle tension and poor sleep. Which anxiety disorder best fits this pattern?
- 2 A client has recurrent unexpected panic attacks and then spends 6 weeks avoiding exercise because a racing heart feels like another attack. Which diagnosis is most likely?
- 3 A person fears buses, crowds, enclosed shops, and being away from home alone because escape might be difficult if panic-like symptoms occur. Which disorder is most consistent with these symptoms?
- 4 Explain why avoidance can reduce anxiety in the short term but maintain or worsen an anxiety disorder in the long term.