phobias

• What is a phobia?

  A phobia is an anxiety disorder, an irrational and extreme fear which is disproportionate to the actual danger/risk it gives.
• 3 main categories of phobias:

  • specific phobia
  • social phobia
  • agoraphobia
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias:

  • panic
  • avoidance
• Emotional characteristics of phobias:

  • anxiety/fear
  • emotional responses are unreasonable
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias:

  • irrational beliefs
  • cognitive distortions
• Main assumptions:

  • abnormality is learnt like normal behaviour
  • we learn to have a phobia
  • known as the two-process model suggested by Mowrer
  • we learn a phobia by association and reinforcement
• Two process model:

  • it is a two stage theory
  • we aquire a phobia due to classical conditioning and maintain it by operant conditioning
• Evaluation of the behavioural explanations of phobias:

  🙂 empirical evidence (Little Albert study)

  🙂 Practical application

  ☹️ Evidence to contradict

  ☹️ Ignores biological preparedness
• Systematic desensitisation:

  • gradually introducing the patient to the phobia
  • replacing fear and anxiety with relaxation
  • works in 3 stages
• Evaluation of systematic desensitisation:

  🙂 Evidence to support (Lang and Lazovik)

  🙂 Requires less effort than cognitive therapies

  🙂 Ethical approach to therapy

  ☹️ Only treats symptoms not the cause
• Flooding:

  • immediate exposure to the phobia
  • can be in-vitro or in-vivo
  • prevents avoidance
  • this is done until they are calm, anxiety is receded and fear is extinguished
  • sessions last longer than SD but it is only one session
• How does flooding work?

  • shows the patient that the phobic object is harmless
  • or they become calm around the phobic object because they cannot experience fear for prolonged periods of time
  • so overcome their phobia through counterconditioning
• Evaluation of flooding:

  🙂 Cost and time effective

  ☹️ Not useful for treating all phobias

  ☹️ Unethical approach to therapy