Anxiety Disorders and Stress Q 31
Freud explains anxiety as:
A. Strives to gratify the needs for satisfaction and security.
B. Conflict between id and superego.
C. A hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal reaction to stress.
D. A conditioned response to stressors.
Correct Answer: B. Conflict between id and superego
Freud explains anxiety as due to opposing action drives between the id and the superego. Moral anxiety is a function of the development of the superego. Whatever the anxiety, the ego seeks to reduce it. Operating at the unconscious level, it employs defense mechanisms to distort or deny reality.
Option A: Sullivan identified 2 types of needs, satisfaction and security. Failure to gratify these needs may result in anxiety. Sullivan (1953b) postulated that it is transferred from the parent to the infant through the process of empathy. Anxiety in the mothering one inevitably induces anxiety in the infant. Because all mothers have some amount of anxiety while caring for their babies, all infants will become anxious to some degree.
Option C: Biomedical perspective of anxiety. Serotonin and dopamine are two important neurotransmitters that, when disrupted, can cause feelings of anxiety and depression. Researchers have also found that several parts of the brain are involved in fear and anxiety.
Option D: Explanation of anxiety using the behavioral model. Anxiety is a psychological, physiological, and behavioral state induced in animals and humans by a threat to well-being or survival, either actual or potential. It is characterized by increased arousal, expectancy, autonomic and neuroendocrine activation, and specific behavior patterns. The function of these changes is to facilitate coping with an adverse or unexpected situation.