Flooding

• Outline the process of Flooding

  • The client is put in a situation where they are directly and immediately exposed to their fear and avoidance is prevented
  • On the basis that extreme fear requires a lot of energy, the intense feelings of panic and the physiological changes that go along with it cannot be maintained for long
  • Eventually, the client will be exhausted and will be returned to a resting, calm state, even though the fear of the object is still present
  • This leads to extinction of the fear response
• Strength of Flooding

  Although the effectiveness of flooding is very difficult to test in an ethical way, evidence from case studies suggests this therapy works.

  For example one case study describes successfully extinguishing a phobia of cars by driving a young patient around for hours until she felt calm
• Strength of Flooding

  This is a very cost and time-effective form of treatment.

  The phobia can be dealt with in one session.
• Limitation of Flooding

  You cannot put someone through flooding without their consent, and unsurprisingly, very few patients willingly go through with this type of treatment

  For some patients, the idea of flooding is too traumatic