phobias

• phobia: excessive fear triggered by an object, place or situation

  specific: fear of an object, or situation

  social: fear of social situation

  agoraphobia: fear of being outside or in a public space
• clinical characteristics:

  behavioural characteristics - how we act

  cognitive characteristics - how we think

  emotional characteristics - how we feel
• behavioural characteristics:

  panic: respond to phobic stimulus by crying or screaming

  avoidance: conscious effort to not encounter phobia

  endurance: staying in the presence of phobia
• cognitive characteristics:

  selective attention: focusing attention on phobia

  irrational beliefs: thoughts about phobia that are illogical

  cognitive distortions: perceptions that are unrealistic
• emotional characteristics:

  anxiety: high rate of arousal and difficult to experience negative emotions

  fear: immediate anxiety when in phobias presence
• Mowrer: suggest that phobias are acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning.

  
  

  phobias are learnt through associating a negative experience, negative reinforcement will make the individual avoid the situation - reduced fear but increased phobia
• evaluation of two-process model:

  strength:

  • little albert experiment -provides credibility and validity
  • application to treatment - systematic desensitisation works through counter-conditioning patients to break associations between phobic stimulus and negative emotions

  weakness:

  • biological factor - phobias may be innate that we develop from ancestors, assuming all negative experiences lead to phobias
• Watson - little Albert experiment:

  Watson placed a rat in front of Albert and showed curiosity not fear, Watson then made a loud noise behind Albert when presenting the rat

  
  

  results: albert would cry in response to the loud noise, after being conditioned and cried to the response to the rat even if there was no loud noise

  stimulus generalisation = Albert cried when presented with santa's beard, rabbits or cotton balls as it represented a rat for Albert
• behavioural treatments of phobias: systematic desensitisation

  • form of exposure thearly that is developed by Wolpe to treat anxiety - gradual process to reduce anxious responses when in the presence of a phobia
• Stage one:

  •  A hierarchy of fears are generated by the client, arranged from least o most anxiety-provoking. This occurs with the clinician.

  stage two

  •  Clients are taught progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) that generate a calm state that is incompatible to anxiety.

  stage three

  •  The client is guided through a series of exposure sessions where they are exposed from least to worst fears. Here, they will simultaneously complete PMR. Clients progress onto the next item on their hierarchy when the stimulus no longer causes anxiety causes very little.
• systematic desensitisation:

  strength:

  • can be applied to specific phobias
  • McGrath: 75% of patients who used SD came over their fear

  weakness:

  • may teach clients to not react in a certain way, instead of being taught that their fears are irrational - fails to tackle cognitive elements of phobias
  • time consuming and not cost-effective
• Flooding:

  immediate exposure to a phobic stimulus, without gradual build up. - takes place over one long session

  
  

  strength:

  • cost effective and not time consuming as you can do 10 sessions in one

  weakness:

  • traumatic, can be uncomfortable and make the clients more afraid of the stimulus
  • limited application to all patient - children, learning difficulties may not be able to give fully informed consent
• DSM Criteria: to be diagnosed, you muse have at least most of the following;

  • unreasonable or excessive fears triggered by a specific object or situation
  • immediate anxiety response, must be out of proportion to the actual danger
  • avoidance or extreme distress, out of their way to avoid the object
  • life-limiting; phobia impacts the individuals school, or personal life
  • six months duration of symptoms
  • not cause by another disorder - doctors rule out similar condiitoning