Flooding

• what is flooding?

  a method to treat phobias
• how common is method?

  not common
• how can flooding be used to treat a phobic patient?

  the client will be exposed to the phobia object for a prolonged period of time or until they have overcome the fear of the phobia
• how does this work? (avoidance)

  there is no option for avoidance behaviour and so the client will quickly learn that there is no danger to the phobic object - extinction
• what theory is this based on?

  classical conditioning
• how many sessions does this take place in?

  1 session
• what is implosion therapy?

  in vitro exposure version of flooding (it uses images rather than direct exposure)
• how is the fear response overcome?

  the fear response is to mentally exhausting that the client cannot hold it up for the prolonged period of time - so the response of anxiety towards phobic object is unlearnt
• what is the positive appropriateness?

  good for simple phobias like fear of feathers
• what is the negative appropriateness?

  • not appropriate for phobias where the situation is less specific - generalised anxiety disorder or where the exposure is problematic
  • cannot be applied to mental health conditions - schizophrenia
• what is the positive practicality for the treatment?

  it is much faster than other therapies for phobias therefore its also cheaper
• what is the negative practicality of the treatment?

  • it has the potential to make the clients phobia worse
  • most people would not be willing to under go this treatment and therapist wouldn't be comfortable treating patient this way
• what is the conclusion for the appropriateness?

  • it must be considered for the client - is it appropriate?
  • in vitro exposure (implosion) can be used in cases where in vivo exposure is to distressing
• what is the effectiveness of the study?

  because it is rarely used, its hard to research and the evidence for the treatment is mixed.

  flooding is only effective for some types of phobias and not others
• what is also bad about the generalisability of the effectiveness?

  may no be able to generalise to an everyday setting as the treatment may only work when in a therapeutic setting - short lived treatment and the phobic response can be relearnt by spontaneous recovery
• what are the ethics to using flooding?

  the client is exposed to a situation with high anxiety and if they want to leave before overcoming the fear it will probably make the phobia worse.

  Would also be ethically questionable of you did not let them leave and use their right to withdraw
• what is the conclusion for ethics?

  • you can use imagery (vitro exposure)
  • Would also have to do a cost-benefit analysis for the client.