Phobias

• A Phobia is an anxiety disorder involving excessive and persistent fear fo a situation or object, where exposure to the source of fear triggers an immediate anxiety response
• Social phobias are fear of social situations in which the person may be judged or embarrassed (AKA social anxiety)
• Agoraphobia is an irrational & extreme fear of places where escape is difficult e.g crowds, leaving home
• Specific phobias are phobias of a specific object e.g arachnophobia
• Emotional characteristics of phobias are excessive fear, anxiety & panic
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias are avoidance, freezing, fainting
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias are irrational thinking, resistance to logical argument, awareness of irrationality
• Flooding is a phobia treatment technique where the patient is introduced to their phobia at maximum capacity without warning with no way of fleeing
• Flooding is similar in effectiveness to alternate therapues although therre is some evidence that it is more effective than systematic desensitization
• Flooding is intense so may not be appropriate for everyone and could backfire
• Flooding can be traumatic so raises ethical issues
• Systematic Desensitization involves gradually introducing someone to their phobia in stages
• Systematic Desensitization has a 75% success rate (McGrath et.al.)
• Systematic Desensitization works more effectively in vivo than in vitro and has long-term effects
• Systematic Desensitization needs little insight so is appropriate for many, however cannot deal with ancient phobias
• Systematic Desensitization avoids extreme distress & drop-outs as it goes at the patient's own pace