phobias

• three types of phobias:

  1. specific phobias - animals, flying, blood, enclosed spaces
  2. social phobias - social situations, public speaking, parties
  3. agoraphobia - public crowded places
• all phobias are more common in women
• social phobias are more prevalent in adolescence and agoraphobia in middle age
• behavioral characteristics:

  • avoidance - can lead to a small world
  • panic - screaming, crying
  • endurance - remains there but high levels of anxiety
• emotional characteristics:

  • anxiety, fear
• cognitive characteristics:

  • selective attention - find it hard to focus on anything else
  • irrational beliefs - tell themselves 'everyone is laughing at you'
  • cognitive distortions - perception of a stimulus is distorted (eg all dogs are ugly)
• APE Are SIC:

  - avoidance, panic, endurance

  - anxiety

  - selective attention, irrational beliefs, cognitive distortions
• two process model:

  behaviour is learned through classical conditioning then maintained through operant conditioning.
• classical conditioning:

  UCS = UCR

  NS = No Response

  UCS + NCS = UCR

  CS = CR
• maintenance of operant conditioning:

  - someone avoids a situation that distresses them, behavior has a desirable consequence, and behavior is then repeated.
• Mowrer:

  'whenever we avoid a phobic stimulus, we successfully escape the fear and anxiety that we would have suffered if we stayed there'
• behavioral treatments aim to...

  1. reduce phobic anxiety through the principle of classical conditioning. a new response to stimulus is calming - reconditioning (systematic desensitization)
  2. reduce phobic anxiety through operant conditioning whereby there is no option for avoidance (flooding)
• systematic desensitization:

  1. patient is taught how to completely relax their muscles
  2. therapist + patient together construct a desensitization hierarchy - each one causing more anxiety than the last
  3. the patient gradually works through the hierarchy while remaining calm
  4. once they have managed one, they move on to the next
  5. the patient eventually masters the feared situation
• in vitro - imagined

  in vivo - real
• flooding:

  aim - remove the learned association between the stimulus and response

  procedure:

  - inescapable exposure to the feared object or situation

  - lasts until the feared response is gone

  - assumes that very high levels of fear/anxiety cannot be sustained and will eventually fall
• SD VS FLOODING

  • SD is a longer/more expensive treatment
  • flooding may not work for all phobias
  • Flooding has a high rate of dropping out
  • more ethical issues with flooding
  • flooding is not appropriate for those with health issues (eg heart condition)
• behavioral treatment evaluation:

  pros - effective, works fast

  cons - ethics, patients drop out (flooding), only treats symptoms, not suitable for health conditions (flooding)
• Solter 2007: flooding

  case study of 5-month-old

  effective and removed symptoms

  However... it only removed symptoms and not the root cause of the distress.
• Jones 1924: SD

  rabbit moved closer to the patient slowly

  Peter was rewarded with food (makes a positive association)

  effective and grew affectionate towards rabbit