Systematic desensitisation

• Counter conditioning this involves learning to associate the thing you fear with something relaxing or pleasant. Pairing the object activity or something that produces fear response with something that produces an incompatible response like pleasure, relaxation and humour
• Graduated exposure this involves introducing you to the thing you fear in stages starting with brief and remote encounters and building up to a more longer, closer and more immediate encounter
• Partcipant modelling a role model demonstrate being relaxed and calm in the presence of feared object
• Idea that the phobia learned by cc it can be un learned in the same way
• Idea that the phobia has been learned by cc so it can be unlearned in same way
• Very important that the stimulation Hierachy is created by the patient not therapist. The parent knows best what makes them anxious, it would be unethical to expose partcipants if they hadn't given informedcconsent to every step in process first
• It's important that with the gradual condition that the patient can stop at any time. The procedure is voluntary you don't have to go onto next step on stimulation Hierachy until you feel ready
• Biofeedback this involved taking the partcipants pulse as a way of measuring breathing measuring how anxious they are
• It can be unethical to expose someone to something they find distressing. It could backfire.
• Problem is that in real life they don't get to choose when they and how they encounter the feared object they have no control over real situation. Means benefits of therapy might not generalise to real life situation
• Involves a step by step approach to get person used to phobic situation or object
• People are taught to relax their muscles
• Individuals undergoing therapy set up Hierachy for themselves so that it is meaningful for themselves. If people relax at each stage then they should be relax with object present
• Iglesia and iglesia uses hypnosis aided sd on someone with driving phobia but who hadn't had an accident. Driving phobia on interstate road in the US. After 6 office sessions. The person was able to drive on the interstate and after 13 months had no recurring symptons. Taken to show effectiveness of treatment
• Compared with other therapies that deal with phobia it is a fairly ethical procedure because it involves a gradual exposure to phobic object or situation and individuals are involved fully in therapy
• Has clear rationale based on cc principles therefore. It can be explained by therefore it can give confidence that therapy will work. Doesn't make more succesful but more likely to be accepted.
• The therapy has been shown to work for example a study in Spain by capafons et al found that the fear of flying was reduced by programme of sd
• There are other factor beside cc involved for example oc principles, cognitive processing as well as social learning. This doesn't make therapy less succesful question reason behind it
• Not useful for other phobias and anxiety disorder it isn't that useful for other mental health issues such as psychoses. The individual needs to be able to learn to relax and has to be involved in whole process not everyone can do this