behaviourist approach to treating phobias

• Behaviourist therapies assume phobias are learnt associations and attempt to replace the fear association with relaxation.
• Reciprocal inhibition


  Fear and relaxation are two antagonistic emotions, as you can't feel two opposite emotions simultaneously. If the therapist can help the client hold the phobic object without fear, they have been successfully counter-conditioned.
• Systematic desensitisation


  1. Therapist teaches relaxation techniques like breathing exercises.
  2. Client creates anxiety hierarchy from the least to most feared to do with the phobic object.
  3. Client completes each stage of the anxiety hierarchy - lowest to highest - must be relaxed at each stage.
  4. When the client can hold the phobic object without fear, the association is extinct, and a new association with relaxation is formed.
• Flooding


  Flooding attempts to counter condition a phobia by immediate and full exposure to the maximum level of phobic stimulus.

  Immediate exposure is expected to cause extreme panic response in the client. The therapist's job is to stop the client from escaping the situation.

  A fear response takes energy so the client will become exhausted and calm down in the presence of the object - learns the phobic object is harmless.
• + Low relapse rate from systematic desensitisation


  E - Gilroy found that clients with a spider phobia showed less phobic behaviours than a control group from 3 months to 33 months later.

  E - This suggests that systematic desensitisation is effective at permanently removing phobias

  L - Therefore, the treatment is valid.
• + Side effects of systematic desensitisation


  E - Patients prefer systematic desensitisation to flooding as they seem that it could be traumatising. Flooding can cause the patient to experience severe distress, whereas systematic desensitisation involves a gradual expose and also includes some elements that are positive for the patient (e.g. learning relaxation procedures).

  E - This is reflected in low refusal rates and low attrition rates.

  L - Therefore, it is a successful therapy because it has less adverse side effects compared to alternatives.
• / Time taken for systematic desensitisation


  E - Systematic desensitisation is a slow process. On average, it takes between 6 and 8 sessions.

  E -It may be too slow for people who may need to overcome a fear quickly, because it may be worsening their quality of life.

  L - Therefore, it may be uneffective and could cause high drop out rates.
• + Low relapse rate from flooding


  E - Flooding has very low relapse rates. Thom found when flooding was compared to drugs, when treating dental phobia, no clients from the flooding group demonstrated any symptoms in later appointments.

  E - Flooding is effective at permanently reducing phobias.

  L - Therefore, is a valid treatment.
• + Time taken for flooding


  E - Ougrin: Studies comparing flooding to cognitive therapies have found that flooding is highly effective and quicker than alternatives.

  E - The quick effect means that patients are free of their symptoms as soon as possible and makes the treatment cheaper.

  L - Therefore, it is effective as other treatments for specific phobias and does so quicker.
• / Effectiveness of flooding


  E - Although flooding is highly effective for treating simple phobias, it appears to be less effective for more complex phobias (e.g. social phobias).

  E - Flooding cannot be applied to all phobias, therefore.

  L - However, certain phobias may benefit from cognitive techniques more, because such therapies tackle irrational thinking.
• / Side effects of flooding


  E - Flooding is a highly traumatic experience. Patients are often unwilling to see flooding through to the end because of the extreme distress they experience.

  E - This means time and money are sometimes wasted preparing patients only to have them refuse to start or complete treatment.

  L - Therefore, flooding may be an ineffective treatment and leads to high drop out rates, wasting money which effects the economy.