Phobias Flashcards
What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias
There’s 3
- Panic - you know what panic means
- Avoidance - running away (interferes with everyday life)
- Endurance - freezing up when in presence of phobic object
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias
There’s 2
- Fear - unreasonable worry and distress
- Anxiety - unsure of what will happen and apprehensive
What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias
There’s 2
- Irrational Beliefs - resist rational arguments, have thoughts that’s not logical
- Selective Attention - become fixated on the phobic object
How are phobias initiated and how’re they maintained
Two Process Model
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Two Process Model
Define classical and operant condition
- Classical conditioning - learning through association
- Operant conditioning - learning through consequences
‘Little Albert’ method (classical conditioning)
Watson & Raynor(1920)
- hit metal bar to make noise every time he played with white fluffy rat
loud noise startled him causing him to cry
- every time he saw anything white or fluffy he cried
Watson and Raynor (1920)
What were the stimuli & responses
‘Little Albert’
- Loud noise - unconditioned stimulus (US)
- Fear/crying - unconditioned response (UCR)
- white rat - neutral stimulus (NS)
^Became associated with unconditioned stimulus
- white rat - conditioned stimulus (CS)
- fear/crying - conditioned response (CR)
^Conditioned response then generalised to other objects
How does operant conditioning work
Flow Chart
- Reinforcement
increase behaviour
Positive reinforcement
add good thing
Negative reinforcement
remove bad thing
- Punishment
decrease behaviour
Positive punishment
add bad thing
Negative punishment
remove good thing
(+) Strengths of Two-Process Model
How phobias are maintained/initiated
- Doesn’t label people with stigma of mentally ill, instead wrongly learned responses which can change
- King et al(1998) saw in case studies phobias develop from trauma (classical conditioning)
Supporting Rachman’s three pathways theory of development of phobias
(-) Weaknesses of Two-Process Model
How phobias are maintained/initiated
- People develop phobias WITHOUT traumatic experiences
- People have traumatic experienced and DONT develop phobias
- Doesn’t account for BIOLOGICAL factors to phobias
How are phobias treated
Two methods
Systematic Desensitisation
Flooding
What are the stages of systematic desensitisation
Anxiety Hierarchy
Relaxation Techniques
Gradual Exposure
Once comfortable, progress through hierarchy until phobia is eliminated
What is anxiety hierarchy
Ranking of fearful situations
Made by therapist & patient
What are relaxation techniques
Patients taught deep muscle relaxation techniques
- progressive muscular relaxation, PMR (Tense group of muscles for a few seconds, fully contracted, and then relax).
- Patients are told to sit quietly and comfortably close their eyes. Working from feet to top of body.
What is gradual exposure
Patient is introduced to the phobic object and work up the anxiety’s hierarchy
- Use their relaxation techniques when exposed to phobic object
Systematic Desensitisation
(+) Little Peter
Jones(1920)
When a white rabbit was presented to Little Peter at gradually closer distances, his anxiety lessened until he was affectionate of the rabbit
Peter was a 2 year old who already had a phobia of white rabbits (generalised to other white objects)
Systematic Desensitisation
(+) Panic disorder therpaies
Klosko et al(1990)
- Klosko et al. (1990) supports SD. He assessed various therapies for panic disorders
- 87% of patients were panic free after SD.
- Compared to 50% on meds
- 36% on placebo
- 33% on nothing
(-) Only addresses symptoms
Behavioural treatments
- Behavioural treatments address Symptoms of phobias
Some critics claim underlying causes will remain
- In the future symptoms can return or symptom substitution will occur
-abnormal behaviours replace the removed ones
What is Flooding
- Directly exposing patient to phobic object.
- Patients would be taught relaxation techniques beforehand.
- No Anxiety Hierarchy.
- Flooding stops phobic responses quickly, due to no option for avoidance. phobic object is deemed harmless, extinction occurs.
- Patient may achieve relaxation from being exhausted by fear responses.
- Patients are required to give fully informed consent to be ethical because of initial psychological harm.
- Patients have options of SD or flooding. Sessions last 2-3 hours (longer than SD sessions)
(+) research support for flooding
Wolpe(1960)
- Wolpe(1960) supports flooding to remove a patient’s phobia of being in cars
Girl was forced into a car and driven around for 4 hours until her hysteria was eradicated
(-) Weakness of flooding
Highly traumatic and patients would not wish to continue to its end
Time and money would be wasted for prep and phobias go uncured
Cannot be used on children
