Study smarter with Fiveable
Get study guides, practice questions, and cheatsheets for all your subjects. Join 500,000+ students with a 96% pass rate.
Anxiety disorders represent the most common category of mental disorders you'll encounter in Abnormal Psychology, affecting roughly 30% of adults at some point in their lives. Understanding these disorders means grasping the underlying mechanisms that drive pathological fear and worry—you're being tested on your ability to distinguish between disorders that may look similar on the surface but differ in their triggers, cognitive patterns, and behavioral consequences. The DSM-5 reorganized these disorders significantly, so knowing which conditions are still classified as anxiety disorders versus those moved to separate categories (like OCD and PTSD) is essential for exam success.
Each disorder in this guide illustrates core concepts you'll see repeatedly: the fight-or-flight response gone haywire, classical conditioning of fear, cognitive distortions that maintain anxiety, and the role of avoidance behavior in perpetuating symptoms. Don't just memorize symptom lists—know what psychological mechanism each disorder demonstrates and how they relate to broader theories of anxiety. When you can explain why someone with panic disorder develops agoraphobia or how a specific phobia differs from generalized anxiety, you're thinking like a clinician—and that's exactly what exam questions demand.
These disorders involve anxiety that isn't tied to a specific trigger but instead spreads across multiple life domains. The cognitive hallmark is persistent, excessive worry that the individual struggles to control, often accompanied by physiological hyperarousal.
Compare: GAD vs. Separation Anxiety Disorder—both involve persistent, excessive worry, but GAD spreads across multiple domains while separation anxiety focuses specifically on attachment relationships. On an FRQ about developmental considerations in anxiety, separation anxiety is your best example of a disorder with distinct childhood and adult presentations.
These disorders feature sudden, intense surges of fear that peak rapidly. The physiological experience mimics a genuine threat response—racing heart, shortness of breath, trembling—but occurs in the absence of actual danger.
Compare: Panic Disorder vs. Agoraphobia—panic disorder centers on the attacks themselves and fear of recurrence, while agoraphobia focuses on avoiding situations. A person can have panic attacks without agoraphobia, or agoraphobia without full panic attacks. Exams often test whether you understand these are now separate diagnoses.
These disorders involve intense fear responses to identifiable stimuli or situations. Classical conditioning and observational learning are primary explanatory mechanisms—fear becomes associated with specific objects or contexts through direct experience, witnessing others' fear, or informational transmission.
Compare: Specific Phobia vs. Social Anxiety Disorder—both involve circumscribed fear triggers, but specific phobias target objects or situations while social anxiety targets interpersonal evaluation. Treatment for both emphasizes exposure, but social anxiety also requires cognitive restructuring to address distorted beliefs about others' judgments.
This category captures anxiety that manifests primarily through inability to speak in certain contexts. The underlying mechanism involves extreme social anxiety that selectively inhibits verbal behavior while leaving other communication channels potentially intact.
Compare: Selective Mutism vs. Social Anxiety Disorder—selective mutism can be conceptualized as social anxiety so severe it inhibits speech entirely in certain contexts. The key distinction is the specific behavioral symptom (not speaking) versus the broader pattern of social avoidance and distress.
Important: Under DSM-5, these disorders were moved out of the anxiety disorders category into their own chapter. However, they share mechanisms with anxiety disorders and are frequently tested together. The distinguishing feature is that a specific traumatic or stressful event is required for diagnosis.
Compare: PTSD vs. Acute Stress Disorder—the primary distinction is timing (acute = 3 days to 1 month; PTSD = beyond 1 month). Both require trauma exposure and share symptom clusters. If an exam asks about DSM-5 organizational changes, remember these moved to their own category.
Important: Like PTSD, OCD was reclassified in DSM-5 into its own chapter. It's included here because exams often test your knowledge of this reorganization and the historical connection to anxiety disorders.
Compare: OCD vs. GAD—both involve excessive worry, but OCD features specific intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors to neutralize them, while GAD involves diffuse worry without compulsions. This distinction frequently appears on exams testing differential diagnosis skills.
| Concept | Best Examples |
|---|---|
| Pervasive, uncontrollable worry | GAD, Separation Anxiety Disorder |
| Acute fear episodes | Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia |
| Conditioned fear to specific stimuli | Specific Phobias, Social Anxiety Disorder |
| Trauma-related anxiety | PTSD, Acute Stress Disorder |
| Anxiety with compulsive behavior | OCD |
| Communication inhibition from anxiety | Selective Mutism |
| Classical conditioning mechanisms | Specific Phobias, Panic Disorder, PTSD |
| Cognitive distortion emphasis | GAD, Social Anxiety Disorder, OCD |
Which two disorders were removed from the anxiety disorders category in DSM-5, and what do they have in common that justified their new classifications?
Compare and contrast panic disorder and agoraphobia—how did DSM-5 change their relationship, and why might someone have one without the other?
A patient reports excessive worry about multiple areas of life, muscle tension, and difficulty sleeping. Another patient reports intrusive thoughts about contamination and washes their hands 50 times daily. What distinguishes these presentations, and which disorders do they represent?
How does the fear conditioning model explain symptom development differently in specific phobias versus PTSD? What role does avoidance play in maintaining both disorders?
If an FRQ asks you to explain why separation anxiety disorder and selective mutism are both relevant to understanding anxiety across the lifespan, what developmental considerations would you emphasize in your response?