Phobias

• Acquisition

  The process of acquiring something, in this case phobias
• Maintenance

  The processing of maintaining something
• Phobias through Classical Conditioning

  Before conditioning

                                Wasps       =NS                                  🡪   no effect

                          Being stung  = UCS                                🡪   UCR  =fear 

  During conditioning

     UCS   wasps                    +         being stung                    🡪   UCS = fear 

  After conditioning

                                               CS      wasps                             🡪   CR = fear 
• Operant conditioning and phobias

  Operant conditioning has mainly been used to explain social phobias e.g. if you are scared of social situations like parties one way to deal with it is to avoid it. These actions lessons or remove the anxiety. Avoidance behaviors then become rewarding and reinforce the avoidance behavior.
• Social Learning Theory and phobias

  Observation: a child watches an older sibling screaming at finding a spider in their bed

  Vicarious reinforcement: The parents comfort the sibling

  Imitation: sometime later the observing child comes across a spider. They repeat the behaviour they witnessed

  Reinforcement: the observing child’s parents provide comfort. This consoles the child but reinforces their fear.
• What are the three types of phobia?

  1. Specific Phobia - e.g. a phobia of animals like snakes, inanimate objects e.g. heights, illness e.g. cancer

  2. Social Phobia - for example a fear of eating in public places, public speaking etc.

  3. Agoraphobia - a fear of specific places e.g. a crowded area
• Systematic

  Gradually facing up to the phobic object via a hierarchy of exposure (from least fearful to most fearful).
• Desensitisation

  Brought about by relaxation techniques taught before facing a phobia
• Flooding definition

  Direct and prolonged exposure to the phobia
• 4 key processes of Systematic Desensitisation

  1. Functional Analysis: A conversation takes places between the client and therapist to identify the nature of the phobia and possible triggers.
  2. Anxiety Hierarchy: The therapist and client work together to create a hierarchy of fear from the least anxiety provoking to the most. It is important the client has input here so they can determine the speed of their treatment.
  3. Relaxation training: the client is taught how to relax using methods that suit them best. E.g. deep breathing, visualisation etc.
  4. Gradual exposure: working through the agreed anxiety hierarchy, the phobic object is gradually introduced. 
• Systematic Desensitisation

  The therapy developed by Wolpe aims to help the patient replace their conditioned response of fear with a new conditioned response of relaxation. 

  SD aims to teach a patient to learn a more appropriate association. For example, being taught relaxation alongside the feared object. Reciprocal inhibition is the process of inhibiting anxiety by substituting a competing response. That is you cannot be anxious and relaxed at the same time. The basis of this treatment follows the idea that if you can “learn to fear” then you can “unlearn” to fear by relaxing when in contact with the phobic object.
• Flooding Explanation

  This is a form of phobia treatment in which the client learns to tolerate the feared object or situation through exposure to a high level of that stimulus. Gradually the client adjusts to the stimulus and the fear is lessened. The technique is often used as part of a cognitive-behavioural therapy program. The key to flooding is rapid exposure to the featured object or situation instead of gradual stages. This facilitates extinction- perhaps because the person becomes too physically exhausted for the conditioned response to occur. The belief behind this is that you cannot stay in the anxious state indefinitely.