Behavioural explanation

• Strength - good explanatory power and application to therapy

  • The two process model improves Watson and Rayners classical conditioning theory
  • An important implication for therapists as it showed that people need to be exposed to their phobia to overcome it
  • once they’re prevented from using avoidant behaviour, the phobia declines
• Weakness - Cognitive and biological aspects of phobias

  • cognitive and biological elements of phobias aren’t addressed
  • Doesn't explain cognitive distortions which worsen phobias
  • Doesnt explain intense panic
• Weakness - alternative explanation for avoidant phobias

  • Not all avoidant behaviour is for anxiety reduction, phobias like agoraphobia have evidence to suggest that avoidant is more motivated by positive feelings of safety
  • reduces reliability of two-step model as it suggests its purely to avoid anxiety
  • However, agoraphobia is classed as an anxiety disorder so people suffering from it may want to avoid social interaction all together