Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

As a culmination of what you have learned in this course, you will write a 3-to-5-page paper designed to
demonstrate your mastery of key course concepts in the field of abnormal psychology. For this assignment,
students will pick a character from a movie, TV show, or book that they think depicts one of the diagnoses we
learned about this semester. The paper will involve three parts.
First, you will provide a diagnostic profile (i.e., matching diagnostic criteria with behavioral symptoms). In other
words, explain what disorder you think this character has and why. You should demonstrate knowledge of the
diagnostic criteria for that disorder as well as examples of how that character meets each diagnostic criterion.
Please note, if there are a couple parts of the diagnosis that you can’t fully demonstrate that the character
meets, then you can explain how information on those criteria would be required to make a complete, accurate
diagnosis. For example, perhaps you can document examples that the character has excessive worries that
would fit the criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), but you don’t have information as to whether
there are physical symptoms like muscle tension or restlessness. In that case, you can just indicate that you
know that is a required part of the diagnosis but that you have insufficient information to confirm that, based
on the information shown in the movie, TV show, etc.
Second, you will provide an explanation of two different theories as to why that disorder developed in your
character, ideally integrating the two theories. Specifically, you will choose from the following theories:
psychodynamic/psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic-existential, sociocultural, and biological. For
this section of the paper, you will demonstrate that you have a good understanding of your two chosen theories
to explain why this disorder develops and are able to apply that theory in your particular character’s case,
using whatever examples you can to support your chosen theories. Please note, if there are aspects of the
theory for which you don’t have clear examples, then you can explain what information would be needed to
fully support that theory. For example, if you want to apply the biological model and say that the character
inherited a predisposition toward anxiety from their parents, but you can’t provide an example of the parents’
anxiety, then just demonstrate that you know such information would be needed to confirm support for that
theory.
Third, you will provide a treatment plan incorporating two different therapeutic approaches, which do not have
to align with the two theories you chose above. You want to demonstrate some understanding here of two
different models’ therapeutic interventions (be specific) and how they would be applied to this character’s
disorder.