Phobias Flashcards
What is a phobia?
An irrational fear of an object or situation.
What are the behavioural characteristics of a phobia?
Panic, avoidance and endurance
What does the behavioural characteristic of panic mean?
Panic may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming or running away.
What does the behavioural characteristics of avoidance mean?
The sufferer will go to a lot of effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus.
This can make it hard to go about everyday life.
What does the behavioural characteristic of endurance mean?
The sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety.
This may be unavoidable in some situations.
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
Anxiety and unreasonable emotional responses.
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
Anxiety, fear and unreasonable emotional responses.
What does the emotional characteristics of anxiety mean?
Anxiety is an unpleasant state of high arousal.
This prevents the sufferer from relaxing and makes it very difficult to experience any positive emotion.
Phobias are classed as…
Anxiety disorders.
What does the emotional characteristic of fear mean?
Fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response felt when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus.
What’s the difference between anxiety and fear?
Anxiety is increased when someone enters a place that is associated with their phobic stimulus.
Fear is when when an individual comes into contact with their phobic stimulus.
What does the emotional characteristic of responses are unreasonable mean?
The emotional responses that we experience go beyond what is reasonable.
What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?
Selective attention to the phobic stimulus,
irrational beliefs,
cognitive distortions.
What does the cognitive characteristics selective attention to the phobic stimulus mean?
The sufferer will find it hard to look away from the phobic stimulus.
What does the cognitive characteristic of irrational beliefs mean?
The sufferer will hold irrational beliefs in response to the stimuli.
