Anxiety, childhood attribution and classification
Three questions, one underlying issue: what makes something a disorder rather than a difficulty. Susan's case answers it cleanly, because her anxiety produces good outcomes and no impairment.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 15, 2026
Three questions about where the line sits
Susan is the clearest of the three and the answer turns on impairment. She is anxious before speaking, and that anxiety makes her prepare meticulously and rehearse — which produces a better outcome rather than a worse one. State the criteria you are applying rather than concluding: distress that is disproportionate to the situation, avoidance of the feared situation, persistence over time, and clinically significant impairment in functioning. Susan meets none of them on the information given. She approaches rather than avoids, her functioning is enhanced, and there is no reported distress beyond the situation-appropriate. Note also what would change the answer — if she declined opportunities, if the rehearsal became compulsive and consumed her time, if the anxiety generalised — because saying what would tip the case shows you are applying criteria rather than reaching a verdict and then justifying it, which is what the exercise is designed to catch.
The childhood-attribution question wants two benefits and two drawbacks, so count them out. Benefits: it directs attention to real developmental and adverse experiences with documented effects, and it can reduce self-blame for someone who believed their difficulty was a personal failing. Drawbacks: it can foster a deterministic view that undermines the belief that change is possible, and it invites unfalsifiable reconstruction of memory — the recovered-memory controversy is the case study, and it did real harm. Add that current evidence supports multiple contributing pathways rather than a single childhood origin. The PMS question is the same boundary problem in its most contested form: severe premenstrual dysphoric disorder does meet impairment criteria and is classified, while classifying ordinary premenstrual experience risks pathologising a normal process and has historically been used to discount women's judgement. Say which side you take and on what criterion, since the criterion is what is being assessed.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Apply distress, avoidance, persistence and impairment as diagnostic criteria.
- 02Identify what additional information would change a diagnostic judgement.
- 03Weigh the benefits and harms of a causal attribution framework.
- 04Reason about the boundary between normal experience and disorder in a contested case.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
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Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01A judgement on Susan with the criteria stated.
- 02What would change that judgement.
- 03Exactly two benefits and two drawbacks of the childhood-origin view.
- 04A reasoned position on PMS classification with the criterion applied.
- 05Citations as required by your course.
Susan's criteria, the childhood debate, then PMS
State the criteria
Set out distress, avoidance, persistence and impairment before assessing anyone.
Apply them to Susan
Show that she approaches rather than avoids and that functioning improves.
What would change the answer
Name the additional facts that would make this a disorder.
Childhood attribution: two and two
Give two benefits and two drawbacks, including the memory controversy.
The PMS classification question
Distinguish premenstrual dysphoric disorder from ordinary experience and take a position.
Sources for diagnostic criteria and the debates
Recommended databases
- NCBI Bookshelf (StatPearls)
- APA Dictionary of Psychology
- PsycINFO
- Your abnormal psychology text
Search sequence
- 1.Read the general criteria for a mental disorder before the specific anxiety criteria.
- 2.Look up the recovered-memory literature, which supplies the strongest drawback for question two.
- 3.Read on premenstrual dysphoric disorder specifically, since it is the classified condition.
- 4.Check the historical use of premenstrual symptoms in legal and employment contexts, which is the second half of the third answer.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Social Anxiety Disorder
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf · 2023
Diagnostic criteria for social anxiety, which is the differential Susan's case invites and does not meet.
- 02
APA Dictionary of Psychology
American Psychological Association · 2024
Reference definitions for the criteria vocabulary used across all three questions.
- 03
About Adverse Childhood Experiences
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · 2024
The documented evidence on adverse childhood experience, which is the benefit side of question two.
- 04
Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct
American Psychological Association · 2017
Professional obligations around memory, suggestion and classification, which bear on both the second and third questions.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Concluding Susan has an anxiety disorder because she feels anxious, which ignores impairment.
- Giving criteria after the verdict rather than deriving the verdict from them.
- Offering fewer than two benefits or two drawbacks.
- Answering the PMS question by preference rather than by criterion.
- Omitting the recovered-memory controversy, which is the strongest drawback available.
Submission checklist
- Are the criteria stated before the judgement on Susan?
- Have you said what would change that judgement?
- Are there exactly two benefits and two drawbacks?
- Does the PMS answer apply the same criterion as Susan's case?
- Have you distinguished premenstrual dysphoric disorder from ordinary premenstrual experience?
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.