The behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias,…

The idea

Diagnosis works in three columns: what the person does, what they feel, what they think. Phobias show avoidance, endurance and panic such as freezing or fainting; anxiety out of all proportion to the danger; and selective attention to the phobic stimulus with irrational beliefs about it. Depression shows raised or reduced activity, disrupted sleep and appetite, sometimes self-harm; lowered mood, anger and lowered self-esteem; and poor concentration, dwelling on the negative and absolutist black-and-white thinking. OCD shows compulsions that are repetitive and performed to reduce anxiety, with avoidance; anxiety, guilt and disgust; and obsessive intrusive thoughts with insight that the fear is excessive. Examiners credit the right item in the right column, so label each one as you write it.

What earns the marks

• Behavioural characteristics: phobias give avoidance, endurance and panic; depression gives changed activity levels, disrupted sleep and eating and self-harm; OCD gives compulsions and avoidance.
• Emotional characteristics: fear and anxiety in phobias; lowered mood, anger and lowered self-esteem in depression; anxiety, distress, guilt and disgust in OCD.
• Cognitive characteristics: selective attention and irrational beliefs in phobias; absolutist thinking, negative bias and poor concentration in depression; obsessive thoughts with insight in OCD.
• The precise distinction that an obsession is a cognition and a compulsion is the behaviour performed to reduce the anxiety it causes.
• Using diagnostic language accurately, such as noting that depressive symptoms must persist for around two weeks to meet DSM criteria.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Putting compulsions in the cognitive column and obsessions in the behavioural column, which reverses the one distinction the question is testing.

• Describing a phobia as simply a fear of something, when the marks are for the disproportionate anxiety, the avoidance and the irrational belief.

• Giving causes or treatments instead of characteristics, so an answer on OCD drifts into serotonin and earns nothing on a characteristics question.

Exam tips

• If the question names one disorder and one category, answer only that cell of the grid and give two or three characteristics with a sentence of detail each.
• In scenario questions, quote the person's exact behaviour from the stem and name the category it belongs to rather than describing the disorder in general.
• Characteristics questions credit knowledge and application only, so do not spend lines evaluating unless the question says discuss or evaluate.