Chapter 14 Specific Phobias

Question 1

Define Anxiety

Answer 1

a state of physiological arousal associated with feelings of apprehension, unease or worry that something is wrong is something unpleasant is about to happen.
-It IS normal to experience a certain amount of anxiety from time to time, as this is our adaptive response making us more alert BUT it should be brief and temporary ….. If not you can develop a…..

Question 2

Define Anxiety disorder

Answer 2

used to describe a group of disorders that are characterised by chronic feelings of anxiety, distress, nervousness and apprehension OR fear about the future …….. all with a negative effect

Question 3

Define phobias

Answer 3

an excessive or unreasonable fear directed towards a particular object, situation or event that causes significant distress or interferes with everyday functioning

Question 4

According to the DSM there are three types of phobias

Answer 4

Agoraphobia (afraid of public or unfamiliar places)
Social phobia
Specific phobia

Question 5

Specific Phobia

Answer 5

a disorder characterised by significant anxiety provoked by exposure to a specific fear object or situation, often resulting in avoidance behaviour.

Question 6

According to the DSM there are five categories that phobias are split up into, what are these?

Answer 6

Of animals (birds, dogs, snakes, fish
Of situations (lifts, flying, tunnels, bridges)
Of blood, injections and/or injury (seeing it, getting one)
Of natural environments (thunder, the dark, water
Other phobias – anything not falling into another category (choking, vomiting, loud noises, costumed characters, dying)

Question 6

Biological factors in Phobias (examples)

Answer 6

We don’t cover this. But is based around brains neurochemistry

Question 7

Psychological factors in phobias

Answer 7

Contributing factors: 
• behavioural and cognitive models 
Management: 
• graduated exposure 
• flooding

Question 8

Social factors in phobias

Answer 8

Contributing factors: 
• environmental triggers 
• parental modelling 
• transmission of threat information 
Management: 
• non-fear modelling 
• gather accurate information and facts

Question 9

Physiological response to phobia (examples)

Answer 9

Trebling, increased heart rate, blood pressure etc

Question 10

What are the two models that are under the psychological contributing factors?

Answer 10

Behavioural model, and Cognative model

Question 11

What is the behavioural model,and what is its subcategories

Answer 11

phobias are learned through experience and may be acquired, maintained or modified by environmental consequences such as rewards and punishment.

Classical conditioning, and operant conditioning

Question 12

What is the the cognitive model? And what are the four bias’

Answer 12

focuses on how people process information and how people think about the phobic stimulus and related events.
The cognitive model’s Key assumption – people with phobias have a cognitive bias (a tendency to think in a way that involves errors and bad judgement and decision making)
Attention bias, memory bias, interpretive bias, and catastrophic thinking

Question 13

What is cognitive bias

Answer 13

a tendency to think in a way that involves errors of judgment and faulty decision-making

Question 14

What is attention bias

Answer 14

the tendency to selectively attend to threat-related stimuli rather than to neutral stimuli.

Question 15

Define memory bias

Answer 15

occurs when recall or recognition is better for negative or threatening information than for positive or neutral information.

Question 16

Define interpretative bias

Answer 16

also called judgmental bias, is the tendency to interpret or judge ambiguous stimuli and situations in a threatening manner.

Question 17

Define Catastrophic thinking

Answer 17

a type of negative thinking in which an object or event is perceived as being far more threatening, dangerous or insufferable than it really is and will result in the worst possible outcome.

Question 18

Examples of each bias

Answer 18

Attention

Memory
Recall the bad part of the memory rather than the good, remembering the one fall over 50 days of not falling.
Interpretative
Looking at the worst alternative of a situation over a more pleasant situation,Dog runner is going to attack you verses dog runner wants to say hi
Catastrophic thinking
Think the worst possible thing to happen, “my mum will kill me if I don’t do this” no she wouldn’t

Question 19

What are the three socio-cultural contributing factors

Answer 19

Environmental triggers
Parental modelling
Transmission of threat information

Question 20

Define environmental triggers

Answer 20

include ‘specific’ objects or situations in the ‘environment’ produce or ‘trigger’ an extreme fear response at the time
-hence a ‘specific environmental trigger’. The more severe the trauma the more likely it is that a phobia will develop

Question 21

Define parental modelling

Answer 21

a specific phobia can be developed through the observation and subsequent modelling of another person’s fearful behavioural eg child scared of mice because parents are as parents display fear responses in the presence of their child

Question 22

Define transmission of threat information

Answer 22

Delivery of information from any secondary source eg others (parents, peers, teachers, media) about a potential threat or danger of a object or situation
eg. Scared of flying after watching air crash investigation

Question 23

Cognitive And behavioural approaches to treating and managing specific phobias

Answer 23

CBT, Graduated exposure & flooding

Question 24

What is CBT

Answer 24

Cognitive behavioural therapy

Question 25

Define cognitive behavioural therapy

Answer 25

combining cognitive & behavioural therapies together to help ppl manage a mental health problem/disorder (CBT for phobias: changing the thoughts and behaviours about a fear stimulus)

Question 26

Define graduated exposure?

Answer 26

Attempts to replace fear response with relaxation. Patient taught relaxation techniques and gradually introduced to fear inducing stimulus while practicing relaxation (fear hierarchy). Gradually introduced to fear inducing stimulus while practicing relaxation.

Question 27

Steps on the behavioural component of CBT

Answer 27

Make a prediction
Review the evidence for and against
Devise an experiment to test this
Note the results
Draw conclusions

Question 28

Flooding

Answer 28

involves bringing the client into direct contact with their most feared object or situation until their fear response disappears.

Expose the patient to their fear straight away
They will panic at first
Soon realise that nothing bad has happened
Can be done using visualisation