Characteristics of Phobias, Depression and OCD

Whenever AQA asks you to describe a mental disorder, it wants the characteristics split into three groups. Learn these three headings first, because the same structure applies to phobias, depression and OCD, and using the wrong heading loses marks even when the symptom itself is correct.

Type of characteristic	The question it answers	A quick memory hook
Behavioural	How does the person act?	What you could see them doing
Emotional	How does the person feel?	The emotions they experience
Cognitive	How does the person think?	Their thoughts, beliefs and attention

A "characteristic" is simply a way the disorder shows itself. Behavioural characteristics are actions an observer could notice, such as running away or repeatedly checking a lock. Emotional characteristics are feelings, such as anxiety or sadness. Cognitive characteristics concern the mind: what a person believes, how they focus their attention, and the thoughts that intrude on them.

A characteristic is a symptom of a disorder. Behaviour is what a person does, emotion is what a person feels, and cognition is what a person thinks. Keep asking "does this describe an action, a feeling or a thought?" and you will sort any symptom into the right column.

The three disorders on this specification are phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The next three slides give the behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of each in turn.

A phobia is an anxiety disorder: an excessive, irrational and persistent fear of a specific object or situation that is out of all proportion to any actual danger it poses. Someone with arachnophobia, for example, may feel intense terror at a small, harmless house spider.

Behavioural (how they act)	Emotional (how they feel)	Cognitive (how they think)
Panic — crying, screaming, freezing or running away when faced with the stimulus	Anxiety and fear — an immediate, intense feeling triggered by the object or situation	Selective attention — the sufferer cannot easily look away from the phobic stimulus
Avoidance — going out of one's way to prevent contact with the phobic stimulus	An unreasonable, disproportionate emotional response — the fear is far greater than the threat warrants	Irrational beliefs — holding unfounded ideas about the stimulus (e.g. "that spider will kill me")
Endurance — remaining with the stimulus while experiencing high anxiety		Cognitive distortions — perceptions of the object are inaccurate and exaggerated

Two behavioural characteristics are easy to confuse. Avoidance means the person keeps away from the stimulus altogether, which can seriously disrupt daily life if the feared object is common. Endurance is the opposite response: the person stays in the presence of the stimulus but suffers extreme anxiety throughout, perhaps because avoidance is impossible.

The emotional response in a phobia is not just fear but fear that is unreasonable and disproportionate to the actual danger. That disproportion is what marks it out as a disorder rather than a sensible, adaptive caution.

Depression is a mood (affective) disorder defined by a persistent lowering of mood alongside a loss of interest and enjoyment in ordinary activities. It affects a person's energy, behaviour and thinking, not only their feelings.

Behavioural (how they act)	Emotional (how they feel)	Cognitive (how they think)
Reduced (or sometimes increased) activity and loss of energy	Persistent lowered mood — a constant feeling of sadness and emptiness	Poor concentration — difficulty making decisions or staying focused
Disruption to sleep and eating — sleeping or eating far more or far less than usual	Anger — irritability directed at the self or at others	Dwelling on the negative — attending to and remembering unhappy events over positive ones
Aggression and self-harm — behaviour turned against the self or others	Lowered self-esteem — a reduced sense of self-worth	Absolutist "black-and-white" thinking — treating situations as all-good or all-bad, with no middle ground

Notice that depression does not push behaviour in only one direction. Activity, sleep and appetite can each go up or down: some people withdraw and sleep constantly, while others become agitated and sleepless. What matters for the exam is that the pattern is disrupted from the person's normal level.

Absolutist thinking is a key cognitive characteristic of depression. The person sees no shades of grey: an outcome that is not a total success is registered as a complete failure. Do not confuse this with the low mood itself, which is emotional.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder built from two elements: obsessions, which are intrusive thoughts, and compulsions, which are the repetitive actions carried out in response to them. Both feed the same cycle of anxiety.

Behavioural (how they act)	Emotional (how they feel)	Cognitive (how they think)
Compulsions — repetitive actions (e.g. hand-washing, checking, counting) performed to reduce anxiety	Anxiety and distress — the overwhelming feeling driven by the obsessions	Obsessions — recurring, intrusive and unwanted thoughts, images or impulses
Avoidance — keeping away from situations that trigger the obsessions	Accompanying low mood / depression — persistent unhappiness alongside the anxiety	Cognitive coping strategies — mental rituals such as praying or counting used to manage the obsessions
	Guilt and disgust — directed at oneself or at an external target	Insight — awareness that the obsessions and compulsions are irrational and excessive

Two features are worth stressing. First, sufferers typically have insight: they recognise that their thoughts and behaviours are excessive, which distinguishes OCD from disorders where the person believes their thoughts are realistic. Second, compulsions are usually performed to reduce the anxiety created by an obsession, or to prevent a feared outcome, so the two elements are locked together.

Compulsions bring only temporary relief. The obsession returns, the anxiety rebuilds, and the compulsion is repeated, which is why the behaviour becomes so entrenched.

The single most common confusion in this topic is treating obsessions and compulsions as the same thing. They are opposite ends of the OCD cycle and belong in different characteristic columns.

	Obsessions	Compulsions
What they are	Recurring intrusive thoughts, images or impulses	Repetitive actions or mental rituals
Characteristic type	Cognitive (a thought)	Behavioural (an action)
Role in the cycle	Create the anxiety	Attempt to reduce the anxiety
Example	"My hands are covered in germs"	Washing hands 40 times a day

Worked scenario. Priya cannot stop the thought that she has left the front door unlocked. The thought returns every few minutes and makes her intensely anxious. To relieve the feeling she returns to the door and checks the lock exactly ten times before she can leave the house. She knows the checking is excessive but feels unable to stop.

• The intrusive thought ("the door is unlocked") is an obsession → a cognitive characteristic.
• The repeated checking, ten times, is a compulsion → a behavioural characteristic.
• The intense worry she feels is anxiety → an emotional characteristic.
• Her awareness that the checking is excessive is insight → a cognitive characteristic.

Obsessions are the thoughts; compulsions are the deeds. If you can picture an observer watching from across the room, they can see the compulsion but not the obsession — that separation tells you which column each belongs in.

1. Putting a symptom in the wrong characteristic column

The commonest error is sorting a correct symptom under the wrong heading, for example calling low mood a behavioural characteristic. Test each one: an action is behavioural, a feeling is emotional, and a thought, belief or focus of attention is cognitive. Panic is behavioural; anxiety is emotional; selective attention is cognitive.

2. Confusing obsessions with compulsions

Obsessions are the intrusive thoughts (cognitive); compulsions are the repetitive actions performed to reduce the resulting anxiety (behavioural). Writing that a compulsion is a thought, or that an obsession is a behaviour, reverses the whole OCD cycle.

3. Giving the characteristics of the wrong disorder

If a question asks for the characteristics of depression, do not describe avoidance of a feared object (a phobia) or hand-washing rituals (OCD). Match every symptom to the disorder named in the question.

4. Describing causes or treatments instead of characteristics

A "characteristics" question wants a description of the symptoms, not an explanation of how the disorder develops or how it is treated. Bringing in the two-process model, Beck's negative triad or drug therapy earns no marks here and wastes time, because those belong to the explanations and treatments part of the specification.

5. Assuming depression only reduces activity, sleep and appetite

Behavioural characteristics of depression can move in either direction: some sufferers become withdrawn and sleep and eat more, while others become agitated and sleep and eat less. Describe the change as a disruption rather than assuming it is always a reduction.