Treating phobias

• what are the methods used by the behaviourist approach to treat phobias?

  • flooding
  • systematic desensitisation
  • forms of flooding (in vitro, in vivo)
  • VRET
• what is flooding and what does it involve?

  prolonged, intense, high level exposure to phobic stimulus.
• what is systematic desensitisation and what does it involve?

  • gradual exposure to phobic stimulus
  • uses reverse counter conditioning to unlearn maladaptative response to phobic stimulus by replacing with another (relaxation).
  • paitent creates their own anxiety hierarchy, only moving on to next stage if they are comfortable with the current one.
• what are the steps of systematic desensitisation?

  step 1- relaxation taught.

  step 2- desensitisation/anxiety hierarchy written.

  step 3- paitent gradually works way up hierarchy, pairing each anxiety provoking event with relaxation.

  step 4- once one step of hierarchy is mastered and they are fully relaxed, they are ready to move onto next stage.

  step 5- paitent eventually masters feared situation at the top of hierarchy.
• what is in vitro and in vivo?

  in vitro= client imagines exposure to phobic stimulus.

  in vivo= client is actually exposed to phobic stimulus.
• evaluation of flooding:

  strengths:

  • cost effective- paitents treated quicker and it is more cost effective for health service providers.

  weaknesses:

  • highly traumatic for patients and causes a high level of anxiety.
  • although highly effective for simple (specific) phobias, the treatment is less effective for other types of phobia, more complex phobias can't be treated.
• evaluation of systematic desensitisation:

  strengths:

  • there is research evidence which demonstrates effectiveness of treatment for phobias.

  weaknesses:

  • not effective in treating all phobias. patients with phobias which have not developed through a personal experience (classical conditioning) not effectively treated.
  • some phobias are believed to have evolutionary origins, therefore SD can't treat these.