phobias

• Phobias


  An irrational fear of an object, place or situation that causes a constant avoidance of said object, place or situation
• Phobias


  • Characterised by the excessive fear and anxiety caused by the object, place or situation
• Categories of phobias (DSM-5)

  • Specific phobia
  • Social phobia (Social anxiety)
  • Agoraphobia
• Specific phobia


  Phobia of a specific object or situation, E.g. A needle or spider, or, flying
• Social phobia (Social anxiety)

  Phobia of social situations, E.g. Public speaking
• Agoraphobia


  Phobia of being outside
• Symptoms of phobias


  • Behavioural characteristics
  • Emotional characteristics
  • Cognitive characteristics
• Behavioural characteristics


  1. Panic: A person with a phobia may panic in response to the phobia stimulus, this could result in displaying the following behaviours; crying, screaming and/or running away

  2. Avoidance: A person with a phobia will avoid the phobic stimulus, which can make daily life complicated, E.g. if a person has a fear of going outside, they are unable to function in their day-to-day life

  3. Endurance: The opposite behaviour to avoidance, where the individual chooses to remain in the presence of the phobia, but continues to suffer and experience high levels of anxiety
• Emotional characteristics


  • Emotional responses: being unreasonable and irrational, the emotional response felt by the sufferer is disproportionate to the danger they are facing
  • Anxiety: A person with a phobia will suffer from anxiety, which is an unpleasant state of high arousal and this state stops the person from being able to relax or feel any other emotion
  • Fear: The person's immediate emotion when coming into contact with the phobia is fear
• Cognitive characteristics


  • Selective attention to the source of the phobia; often when the person is near the phobia, they cannot focus on anything else
  • Cognitive distortions, the person's perception of the phobia can often be distorted, E.g. Someone who has a phobia of spiders can see the spider as aggressive and angry looking and may even feel that the spider is running toward them as if to attack
• Behaviourist approach


  Explains all behaviour as something that is both observable and learned
• Behavioural approach to explaining phobias

  • Focused on explaining the behaviours created by the phobia and does not explain the cognitive or emotional features of phobias
• Two-process model


  An explanation for the onset and persistence of disorders that create anxiety, this includes phobias
• Acquisition of phobia by classical conditioning

  1. Phobic objects are at first a neutral stimulus (NS) and do not produce a phobic response

  2. If it is then presented with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), that produces an unconditioned response (UCR) then, the NS will become associated with the UCS and then the fear (phobia), will occur whenever the NS is there

  3. The NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the UCR becomes the conditioned response (CR)

  4. This conditioning is then generalised to similar objects
• Maintenance by operant conditioning

  1. If a person avoids the phobic object or situation then anxiety is greatly reduced, which is rewarding for the sufferer

  2. Operant conditioning happens when behaviour is reinforced; by avoiding something unpleasant and being rewarded through not experiencing anxiety, we are reinforcing the avoidant behaviour

  3. Avoidance of the phobic stimulus reduces the fear and this reduction in fear reinforces the avoidance behaviour and so the phobia is maintained
• Little Albert experiment


  • Watson and Rayner wanted to study the development of phobias and conducted a laboratory experiment where they created a 9-month-old baby called 'Little Albert'
  • At the start, Albert showed no unusual anxiety or worries about different objects
  • Whenever the white rat was presented to Albert, they made a loud, scary noise by banging an iron bar close to Albert's ear
  • The noise (UCS), created a fear response
  • When the rat (NS) and the UCS were put together, they became associated and both then created the fear response
  • Albert started to display fear when he saw the rat (NS)
  • The rat then became the CS that produces the CR and the phobia had started
  • The conditioned stimulus could be generalised to similar objects; when they showed Albert other fluffy objects, he showed distress at all of these
• Today the Little Albert experiment would not take place due to ethical guidelines and the psychological harm he was put under, which means its relevance to today's society needs to be mentioned
• Strengths


  • The two-process model has real-world application, it explains using two distinctive elements how phobias are both created and maintained
  • Watson and Rayner's 'Little Albert' study supports the two-process model as they showed how a frightening experience can be conditioned
• Limitations


  • The two-process model does not account for the cognitive processes associated with phobias, behavioural explanations focus on the cause of behaviours, however, cognitive components play a significant part in why someone has a phobia
  • Not all phobias appear following a bad experience and the phobia of snakes is evidenced in many people who have no experience of them, which does not support the two-process model
• Evolutionary explanations


  • Some behavioural responses may be better explained by evolutionary theory for those phobias which exist that would once have been dangerous to our ancestors, E.g. Darkness, snakes, and dogs. Evolutionary theory explains this as preparedness (Seligman 1971)
• Systematic desensitisation


  The main behaviourist therapy to treat phobias, designed to slowly reduce the anxiety caused by the phobia using classical conditioning
• Systematic desensitisation


  1. Anxiety hierarchy

  2. Relaxation

  3. Exposure
• Anxiety hierarchy


  A list of situations that involve the phobic stimulus from least to most frightening
• Relaxation


  Techniques to help the patient relax, such as breathing exercises, imagining techniques, or medication
• Flooding


  A behavioural therapy for treating phobias
• Exposure


  The patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus starting at the bottom of the hierarchy while in a relaxed state
• Flooding


  1. Patient is flooded with immediate exposure to their phobia

  2. Patient cannot avoid the phobic stimulus, avoidance is prevented

  3. Phobic response stops, and the learned response is extinguished

  4. Counter-conditioning is the result as the patient learns to relax around the phobic stimulus
• Anxiety hierarchy for arachnophobia

  • Imagine what a spider looks like
  • Look at pictures of spiders
  • Enter a room with a spider in a glass box
  • Look at the spider in the glass box
  • Hold the glass box with the spider inside
  • Watch someone else hold the spider
  • Allow the spider to walk close/on to you
  • Hold the spider
• Systematic desensitisation


  • Proven to be successful with a range of phobias and effective on different types of people
  • Successful with patients who have a vivid imagination and can imagine their phobia
  • A fast treatment that requires less effort than most other psychotherapies
  • Can use virtual reality to lessen dangerous situations
  • Successful treatment for those with learning disabilities
• Example of flooding


  • A patient with acrophobia (fear of heights) would be taken to stand on the edge of a tall building
• If the patient can learn a new response to the phobic stimulus, as well as learn to relax in the presence of the phobia

  They will be cured
• Flooding


  Designed to stop the phobic response using a 'short, sharp, shock'-type approach
• Flooding


  • Does not have the gradual build-up of the hierarchy: the patient is flooded with their phobia all at once
  • Works with a patient and therapist
• Flooding


  Is cost-effective, although individual flooding sessions are usually longer than systematic desensitisation sessions, fewer sessions are needed
• Flooding


  Works well with 'simple' phobias e.g. arachnaphobia (fear of spiders)
• Flooding


  Is less effective with more complex phobias, such as social phobias
• Flooding


  Can be very traumatic for the patient therefore it may be ethically compromised
• Schumacher et al. (2015): 'Both patients and therapists rated flooding as significantly more stressful than systematic desensitisation'