Anxiety Symptoms Fight or Flight a range of

Anxiety Symptoms: Fight or Flight - a range of evolutionarily advantageous physical changes common to mammals - helpful for dealing with acute threat (e. g. car screeching toward us) - brain struggles to differentiate between imagined threat and ‘objective’ threat.

Medically Unexplained Symptoms (Functional Symptoms) - Umbrella term for several diagnoses with a neurological basis (e. g. non-epileptic attach disorder, chronic pain, dissociative symptoms) - Because there is no ‘damage’ to the nervous system, routine medical investigations (e. g. scans, blood tests) produce no definitive indications. - Not “all in the mind” but as yet poorly understood by medical science. Evidence suggests problems in brain sending and receiving neuronal information – i. e. a problem with the function of the nervous system. - Like having software problem on a computer, rather than a hardware problem. - Can often be treated and/or managed effectively with multi-disciplinary approaches (usually Med/Psych/Physio/OT) but require a concerted effort from everyone (patient themselves, family, school, work etc). - Biopsychosocial approach to make sense of predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating factors. Understanding is key.

Understanding symptoms Biological Psychological Social Predisposing Genetic factors / Structural Disease Personality Traits Depression / Anxiety Adverse experiences Precipitating Physical injury / illness Acute dissociation Concern / attention about Stressful life events bodily symptoms Perpetuating Changes in nervous system function Worry about cause Avoidance of symptom provocation Anger Frustration Depression Subtle neuroendocrine changes Not being believed / Stigma of an ‘undiagnosed’ illness / Loss of job/independent income www. neurosymptoms. org

Cognitive-Behavioural Understandings