flooding

• Ethical safeguarding:

  It is an unpleasant experience as the client has given fully informed consent to the procedure. This means that the client will be fully prepared for the session. They are also usually given a choice between systematic desensitisation or flooding.
• How does flooding work?

  It stops the phobic response very quickly without the option of avoidance behaviour. They realise that the phobic stimulus is harmless so fear reduces. CS no longer produces CR. In some cases only one session is needed. Also the client may only reach a relaxation state when they have exhausted their own fear.
• limitation is that it masks the symptoms and does not tackle the underlying causes of the phobia. Example is Persons 1986 reported the case of a woman who had a phobia of death was treated with flooding. Her fear of death declined, but the fear of being criticised got worse. However, only evidence for system substitution comes in the form of case studies, which may only generalise the phobias within the study.
• Clinical effectiveness is how refractive the treatment is for tackling the patient's symptoms. When we provide therapies in health systems such as the NHS we think about the cost. Therapy is cost effective when it is clinically effective and not expensive. Flooding can be completed in one session compared to systematic desensitisation which takes more sessions to produce the same results. Even allowing a longer session like three hours to take place making flooding more cost effective. This means that more people can be treated at the same cost with flooding than SD and other treatments.
• Flooding unpleasant experience, as it is used to confront the phobic stimulus which provokes high anxiety. Schumacher 2015 found pps and therapists using flooding are more stressed than the ones that use SD. raises ethical issues for psychologists of knowingly causing stress to clients, but this is not as serious as there is obtained informed consent so that the client prepare .  Due to the traumatic nature there are more clients dropping out of this treatment making it less cost effective due to the stress. means not cost effective and therapists will start avoiding treatment .
• Flooding unpleasant experience, as it is used to confront the phobic stimulus which provokes high anxiety. Schumacher 2015 found pps and therapists using flooding are more stressed than the ones that use SD. raises ethical issues for psychologists of knowingly causing stress to clients, but this is not as serious as there is obtained informed consent so that the client prepare .  Due to the traumatic nature there are more clients dropping out of this treatment making it less cost effective due to the stress. means not cost effective and therapists will start avoiding treatment .