Flooding

• Flooding is based on similar principles as SD, in that it also views, phobias as being learnt through association and it can therefore also be unlearnt.
• • Flooding also works on the principle of reciprocal inhibition, that we cannot feel two opposing emotions at the same time (i.e. anxiety and relaxation).
• • Flooding therefore aims to replace the feelings of fear with feeling of relaxation.
• • However during flooding rather than gradually exposing the individual to the feared stimuli, the individual is exposed to it in one long session and sometimes this is enough to cure a phobia.
• This session continues until the patient is

  simultaneously confronting the fear of heights, snakes, and the dark.

  fully relaxed.
• During flooding the phobic stimuli is experienced without the UCS and so the patient stops feeling the CR (the fear) and it is replaced with a new CR (relaxation).