Phobias

Question 1

What are phobias according to the dsm-5?

Answer 1

All phobias are characterised by excessive fear and anxiety, triggered by an object, place or situation. The extent of the fear is disproportionate to the danger presented.

Question 2

What are the 3 categories of phobias?

Answer 2

Specific phobias
Social anxiety
Agoraphobia

Question 3

What are specific phobias?

Answer 3

This could be of an object (animals), body parts or situations (flying)

Question 4

What is social anxiety?

Answer 4

Phobias of social situations such as public speaking or using a public toilet.

Question 5

Whats agoraphobia?

Answer 5

Phobia of being outside or in a public place

Question 6

What are the 3 behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 6

Panic
Avoidance
Endurance

Question 7

What is panic?

Answer 7

Someone with a phobia may panic in the presence of the phobic stimulus

This could involve a range of behaviours, but particularly things like crying, screaming or running away.

Children may respond differently and may freeze, have a tantrum or cling to their caregiver.

Question 8

What is avoidance?

Answer 8

Unless someone is making a concsious effort to face their phobia, people will typically go to extreme lengths to prevent coming in to contact with the phobic stimulus.

This type of avoidance behaviour can make everyday life very difficult.
E.G. Someone with a fear of public toilets may limit the amount of time they spend outside of the home.

Question 9

What is endurance?

Answer 9

In direct opposition to avoidance is endurance.

This happens when someone choses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus.
E.G. Someone with arachnophobia may decide to stay in the room with a spider on the ceiling so they can keep an eye on it.

Question 10

What are the 3 emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 10

Fear
Anxiety
Unreasonable emotional response

Question 11

What is anxiety?

Answer 11

Dsm-5 classifies phobias as anxiety disorders.

By definition they involve an emotional response of anxiety.

This prevents a person from relaxing because they are in a very high state of arousal and makes it very difficult for the individual to experience any postive emotions.

This can be long term.

Question 12

What is fear?

Answer 12

We may use ‘anxiety’ and ‘fear’ interchangably, but we need to know their distinct defintions and meanings in terms of phobias.

Fear is immediate and extremely unpleasant, experienced when we encounter or even think about the phobic stimulus.

It is generally more intense but for shorter periods than anxiety.

Question 13

What is unreasonable emotional response?

Answer 13

The degree of anxiety and fear experienced by someone with a phobia is significantly greater than that experienced by the average person.

Someone with arachnophobia will have a strong emotional response to even the smallest of spiders, whereas someone without a phobia would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisonous spider.

Question 14

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 14

Selective attention
Irrational beliefs
Cognitive distortions

Question 15

What is selective attention?

Answer 15

If an individual can see the phobic stimulus, it can be very difficult to look away from it.

Keeping an eye on something that could potentially be dangerous is a good thing as it gives us the best chance of reacting quickly to the threat, should we need to.

This is not so useful when the fear is irrational.

People with arachnophobia may struggle to concentrate if there is a spider in the room and may not be able to maintain eye contact with the person they are talking to.

Question 16

What are irrational beliefs?

Answer 16

People with phobias typically hold unfounded beliefs about the phobic stimulus.

These are things that can’t always be easily explained and have very little basis in reality.

E.G. People with social phobias may thing that if they blush, others will perceive them as weak.

This irrational belief increases the pressure on the individual to perform well in social situations, and so increases the anxiety and so on.

Question 17

What are cognitive distortions?

Answer 17

People with phobias generally have distorted perceptions that may be
Inaccurate or unrealistic.

They consider things ugly or disgusting, compared to the opinion of most of the population.

E.G someone with ophidiophobia may see snakes as alien and aggressive-looking

Question 18

What is the behavioural explanation of phobias?

Answer 18

The behavioural explanation of phobias is particularly concerned with behavioural characteristics of phobias – panic, avoidance and endurance.

Question 19

Two process model
Who?
What does it explain?
What does it state?

Answer 19

Orval hobart mowrer (1960)
Proposed the two-process model as a way of explaining phobias, based on the behaviourist approach in psychology.

This states that phobias are acquired (learned in the first place) by classical conditioning and then continue because of operant conditioning.

Question 20

Acquisition by classical conditioning

Classical conditioning involves?

Answer 20

Classical conditioning involves learning to associate something which we initially have no fear of (neutral stimulus) with something that already triggers a fear response (unconditioned stimulus).

Question 21

‘little albert’ watson and rayner (1920)
Start of the experiment?
Purpose?
Albert was initially presented?

Answer 21

Albert had no unusual anxiety at the start of the experiment.

The purpose was to see if watson and raynor could condition albert to have a phobia of something that he had previously not been phobic of.

Initially shown a white rat, which he wanted to play with (neutral stimulus).

Question 22

‘little albert’
What happened when the rat was presented?
What did it create?
What did albert begin to associate?

Answer 22

Whenever the rat was presented to albert, the researchers made a loud, frightening noise (unconditioned stimulus).

This created a response of fear (unconditioned response).

When the rat and the loud noise (ns and ucs) were experienced close together, albert began to associate the two together.

Question 23

'little albert'
What do both stimulus now produce?
What did the rat become?
What did fear become?
What was the conditioning generalised to?

Answer 23

Both stimulus now produced the fear response.

The rat became the conditioned stimulus (cs) and the fear produced became the conditioned response (cr).

This conditioning was then generalised to similar objects, such as a white fur coat and watson wearing a santa claus beard, which all produced the conditioned response of fear.

Question 24

Maintenance by operant conditioning mowrer
A response that is acquired by classical conditioning will generally?
Mowrer said that phobias are?
For operant conditioning to take place our?

Answer 24

A response that is acquired by classical conditioning will generally deteriorate over time, unless it is maintained by operant conditioning.
Mowrer said that phobias are often long lasting because of operant conditioning maintaining it.
For operant conditioning to take place, our behaviour must be reinforced (rewarded) or punished.

Question 25

Maintenance by operant conditioning mowrer
Reinforcement leads to?
In the case of negative reinforcement an?
Mowrer also said that?

Answer 25

Reinforcement leads to the frequency of the behaviour increasing (positive and negative reinforcement)
In the case of negative reinforcement, an individual avoids a situation that is unpleasant, which results in a desirable consequence so the behaviour is not repeated.
Mowrer also said that when we avoid the phobic stimulus, we escape the anxiety and fear that we would have otherwise experienced, which reinforces the avoidance behaviour and maintains the phobia.

Question 26

Behavioural approach treating phobias

2 ways?

Answer 26

Flooding

Systematic desensitisation

Question 27

What is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 27

Behavioural therapy
Gradually reduce the phobic anxiety
Classical conditioning (new response is associated with phobic stimulus top help person relax)
Counterconditioning

Question 28

What 3 processes does systematic desensitisation involve?

Answer 28

Involved three processes: anxiety hierarchy, relaxation, exposure

Question 29

What is anxiety hierarchy?

Answer 29

Anxiety hierarchy:
Put together with the client and the therapist
Contains a list of situations related to the phobic stimulus arranged in order from least to most frightening.

Question 30

What is relaxation?

Answer 30

Therapist teaches the client deep relaxation techniques.
Because it is impossible to be both deeply relaxed and highly anxious at the same time, one emotion prevents the other.
This is called reciprocal inhibition.
If the client can learn to be deeply relaxed around the phobic stimulus, then they will be counter conditioned.
Techniques could involve breathing exercises or mental imagery techniques (imagine themselves in relaxing situations)
They could also be taught meditation techniques, or using drugs to help relax them, such as valium.

Question 31

What is exposure?

Answer 31

The final step is to actually be exposed to the phobic stimulus.
Client will work up the anxiety hierarchy that they agreed with the therapist.
When they can stay relaxed in the presence of lower levels of the phobic stimulus, they move up to the next step.
Treatment has been successful when the client can stay relaxed in situations at the top of the hierarchy.

Question 32

What is flooding?

Answer 32

Involves exposure to the phobic stimulus but without the gradual build up.
Involves immediate exposure to a very frightening situation.
Sessions tend to be around 2/3 hours long
Sometimes only one session is needed to cure the phobia.

Question 33

How does flooding workk?

Answer 33

It stops the phobic response very quickly.
Without the option of avoidance behaviour, the client quickly learns that the phobic stimulus is harmless. (extinction)
A learned response is extinguished when the cs is encountered without the ucs. The result is that the cs no longer produces the cr.
Sometimes, people may achieve relaxation because they are so exhausted by their fear response.