Paper 1 - Psychopathology - Phobias

Question 1

What is a phobia?

Answer 1

A phobia is an anxiety disorder, which interferes with daily living. It is our instant or irrational fear that produces a conscious avoidance of the feared object or situation

Question 2

What are the emotional aspect of a phobia?
What does this actual mean?

Answer 2

How do you feel when you are a feared object

Anxiety
Increases in heart rate
Increases in breathing rate
Unreasonable emotional

Question 3

What are the behavioural aspects of a phobia?
What does this really mean?

Answer 3

How do you behave when you see a feared objects?

Panic, crying, screaming and running away
Avoidance of a phobia - which can effect day to day life
Endurance - if you remain in presence of a stimulus you will be experiencing high anxiety

Question 4

What are the cognitive aspects of a phobia?
What does this really mean?

Answer 4

What do you think about feared objects?

Selective attention - hard to look away from the stimulus
Irrational believes - social phobias - this makes people act differently
Cognitive distortions - perceptions of the stimulus are distorted

Question 5

Who proposed the two process model?

When?

Answer 5

Hobart Mowler
1960

Question 6

What is the two process model?

Answer 6

This states that phobias are acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning

Question 7

What is the two process model based on and what does it try to explain?

Answer 7

The behaviourist approach
Phobias

Question 8

What tends to happen to responses due to classical conditioning?
Why is this relevant?

Answer 8

CC suggests that phobias tend to fade over time
However phobias tend to be long lasting
So Mower explained this long lastingness with operant conditioning (maintenance of phobias)

Question 9

When does operant conditioning tend to happen?

Answer 9

When behaviour is either reinforced or punished

Question 10

What does reinforcement tend to do?

Answer 10

Increase behaviour

Question 11

What does negative reinforcement do?
What does this result in?

Answer 11

Makes people avoid situations which are unpleasant
This results in a desirable reward (getting rid of the phobia) which means that the behaviour will be repeated. This maintains the phobia

Question 12

What are the positive evaluations of the two process model of the behavioural approach?

Answer 12

Good explanatory power

Question 13

What are the negative evaluations of the two process model of the behavioural approach?

Answer 13

There are alternative explanations for avoidance behaviour
An incomplete explanation of phobias
Phobias that don’t follow a trauma
It doesn’t include the cognitive aspect

Question 14

What explanation do we look at for phobias?

Answer 14

The two process model

Question 15

Explain the positive evaluation of the two process model: good explanatory power

Answer 15

It explains how phobias can be maintained over time and this has important implications for therapies
Once a patient is prevented from practising their avoidance behaviour the behaviour ceases to be reinforced and the phobia

Question 16

Explain the negative evaluation of the two process approach as explaining phobias: there are alternate explanations for avoidance behaviour?

Answer 16

Not all avoidance behaviours associated with phobias seem to be the result of anxiety reduction
There is evidence to suggest that at least some avoidance behaviours appear to be motivated by positive feelings of safety. An example of this is agoraphobia

Question 17

What is agoraphobia?

Answer 17

The fear of being locked in

Question 18

Explain the negative evaluation of the two process approach as explaining phobias: it is an incomplete explanation of phobias

Answer 18

In 2007 Bounton suggested that evolutionary factors probably have an important role in phobias

Phobias such as being afraid of the dark could be acquired by a source of danger in the past
It is adaptive to develop fears like this

In 1971 Selingman called this biological preparedness - the innate predisposition to acquire certain fears

(Biological preparedness)

Question 19

Explain the negative evaluation of the two process approach as explaining phobias: it doesn’t include phobias that don’t follow trauma?

Answer 19

For some people they don’t know why they fear something
A phobia could be a result of conditioning but not always such as biological preparedness

Question 20

Explain the negative evaluation of the two process approach as explaining phobias: it doesn’t include the cognitive aspect?

Answer 20

The behaviouralist approach doesn’t take into account the cognitive approach
The 2 proses model explains the maintenance of phobias in terms of avoidance
A phobia could be caused by a negative schema

We can process emotions cognitively with - cognitive distortions, irrational believes and selective attention

Question 21

What is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 21

This is a treatment designed to gradually reduce phobic stimulus so they will be cured because if the sufferer can learn to relax in the presence of a stimulus it is by definition cured. This includes the hierarchy of fear

Question 22

What is counterconditioning?

Answer 22

If the sufferer can learn to relax in the presence of the stimulus they will,be cured because a new response is learned.
This is the hopeful outcome of systematic desensitisation

Question 23

What are the positive evaluations for systematic desensitisation?

Answer 23

It is effective
It covers a range of phobias
It is acceptable to patients

Question 24

What are the negative externalities of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 24

It is expensive

Question 25

Explain the evaluation of systematic desensitisation: it is effective

Answer 25

Gilray (2003) treated 42 patients in 3 45 minute sessions each, compared to a controlled group who were treated using relaxation without. Exposure to the phobia at 3 months and 33 months after the treatments group, were less fearful than the relaxation group

Question 26

Explain the evaluation of systematic desensitisation: it covers a range of patients?

Answer 26

Some people withy anxiety disorders also have learning disabilities
Other therapies such as flooding and CBT need to patient to reflect on what they are thinking
As a result systematic desensitisation may be the most appropriate therapy if the person has a learning disability

Question 27

Explain the evaluation of systematic desensitisation: it is acceptable to patients?

Answer 27

Lots of patients prefer systematic desensitisation as it is not as traumatic as flooding
This is reflected in low refusal rates and low attrition rates
Attrition rate - the rate that people leave

Question 28

Explain the evaluation of systematic desensitisation: it is expensive?

Answer 28

Some people will never be able to teach themselves to relax or it could take a long time so it could be very expensive

In these cases flooding could be better

Question 29

Quickly explain flooding?

Answer 29

Flooding is quick
Sometimes the phobia is cured because the patient gets exhausted by their fear response
Flooding involves exposing the person to the stimulus
In part, it works because there is no option of avoidance and patients quickly learn that the phobic stimulus is harmless

Question 30

What is it called when someone gets over their phobia?

Answer 30

Extinction

Question 31

What are the evaluations of flooding?

Answer 31

It is coast effective
Ethical safeguards
It is less effective for some phobias
The treatment is traumatic
Symptom substitution

Question 32

Explain the evaluation of flooding: ethical safeguards?

Answer 32

Flooding is a very uncomfortable thing so it is important to get full consent
Patients should be fully prepared

Question 33

Explain the evaluation of flooding: it is cost effective

Answer 33

Flooding is at least as effective as other treatments for specific phobias
Ougrin (2011) have found that flooding is highly effective and quicker than alternatives. This also makes it cheaper.

Question 34

Explain the evaluation of flooding: it is less effective for some phobias

Answer 34

Social phobias and agoraphobia seem to show no improvement under flooding.

This is because it doesn’t consider complex cognitive aspects such as anxiety. Therefore CBT could be more useful to challenge irrational thought processing

Question 35

Explain the evaluation of flooding: the treatment is traumatic for patients

Answer 35

Flooding can be highly traumatic
Often patients are unwilling to see it though until the end
This leads to a waste of time or money

Question 36

Explain the evaluation of flooding: symptom substitution

Answer 36

This is a common criticism of flooding and systematic desensitisation
This is when one phobia appears and is replaced by another.
HOWEVER THEW EVIDENCE FOR THIS IS MIXED
Frued said that this occurs when the unconscious impulses and conflict which caused the original symptoms are not dealt with effectively

Question 37

Explain how a session of systematic desensitisation may work?

Answer 37

They may start off with a picture of a bird and discuss feelings. They they may go to a feather, then a video. If at any point the ppt feels too anxious they may scale it back of talk. This will continue until the participant has been counter conditioned. This is referred to as the hierarchy of fear where ppts are taught to relax when reviewing the images. You can’t feel fear and feel relaxed at the same