Behavioural Approach to Treating Phobias

Question 1

Why does Systematic Desensitation work?

Answer 1

• It’s impossible to feel 2 opposite emotions (fear and relaxation) at once
• SD uses classical conditioning to replace irrational fears and anxieties associated to phobic stimulus with relaxation
• Learned relaxation technique is used by client and replaces anxiety as client is exposed in stages of rising intensity to phobic stimulus

Question 2

What are the 3 processes of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 2

1. Anxiety Hierachy: therapist and patient work together to construct an AH - a list of situations related to phobic stimulus that provoke anxiety arranged in order from least to most frightening (low to high intensity)
2. Relaxation: therapist uses relaxation training to teach the patient to relax as deeply as possible e.g. breathing excercises, mental imagery techniques
3. Exposure: the patient gradually moves up the AH in a relaxed state. This takes place across several sessions starting at the bottom of the AH. When the patient can stay relaxed in the presence of lower levels of the stimulus they move up the AH. Treatment is successful when the patient can stay relaxed in situations high on the AH

Question 3

How does flooding work?

Answer 3

• Direct and immediate exposure to phobic stimulus for extended periods of time (sessions can be 2-3hrs) without a gradual build up in an AH
• Patients are prevented from avoiding phobic stimulus and forced to stay in its presence until fear/anxiety has receded and phobic response is exhausted
• Flooding sessions are longer than SD sessions

Question 4

Why does flooding work?

Answer 4

• Flooding stops phobic responses very quickly. This may be because the patient doesn’t have the option to avoid the phobic stimulus and so soon learns its harmless
• In terms of CC, this process is called extinction - when the conditioned stimulus is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus
• This results in the CS no longer producing the CR
• Also, it may be that the patient achieves relaxation in the presence of the phobic stimulus as they have become exhausted by their own fear response

Question 5

How does Gilroy et al support?

Answer 5

• A strength of SD is that research has found it’s extremely effective in treating specific phobias
• Gilroy et al followed up 42 people who had been treated for arachnophobia in 3 45 minute SF sessions. A contral group was treated by relaxation without exposure
• At both 3 months and 33 months after the treatment, the SD group were significantly less fearful than the control group
• This shows that SD is an effective and long lasting treatment thus making it useful in treating phobias

Question 6

How does Ougrin support?

Answer 6

• A strength of flooding is that it’s often more appropriate and time efficient than other treatments
• Ougrin compared behavioural therapies to cognitive therapies and founf behavioural therapies are significantly quicker
• Some cognitive therapies like CBT require patients to keep diaries throughout the week and di homework tasks to try and overcome disorders
• Flooding procedures in general require less conscious effort from the patient compared to psychotherapies where patients have to be more active in their treatment
• This means patients are more lkely to continue with cognitive treatment with a lower drop out rate and so overcome their phobia
• Thus behavioural treatments may be more effective than cognitive treatments

Question 7

How does the psychodynamic model weaken the BA?

Answer 7

• A weakness of flooding and SD is that they may not be addressing the real cause of the phobia
• The treatments have been criticised by the psychodynamic model which claims that behavioural therapies only focus on symptoms and ignores causes of abnormal behaviour
• Psychoanalysts claims that symptoms are merely the tip of the iceberg - the real cause of phobias may be traumatic childhood experiences which are repressed into the unconscious mind
• Behavioural therapy doesn’t deal with these issues but tries to alleviate the anxiety caused. In the long term, this leads to phobias resurfacing in a different form (symptom substitution)
• Thus, using behavioural therapies to treat phobias may be ineffective in the long run