phobias

Question 1

Acronym for evaluation a treatment

Answer 1

D- different treatment
E- expense
S- studies (supporting or opposing)
S- side effects
E- ethics and control
R- reason or masks symptoms?
T- time

Question 2

Systematic desensitisation A01

Answer 2

SD aims to help the client unlearn the maladaptive behaviour and substitute a more adaptive response in its place.
This process can either be in vivo (exposure to real object) or in vitro (imaginary exposure to the object).
SD is based on the principle of incompatible responses, the idea that you cannot be both anxious and relaxed at the same time (reciprocal inhibition). Treatment assumes that the phobia can be removed by teaching someone to relax when in contact with the phobic object.

Question 3

in vivo

Answer 3

real life exposure.
Being exposed to the real object or situation in which someone has a phobia of.

Question 4

in vitro

Answer 4

Imaginary exposure.
Being exposed to the phobic situation through a simulation or a picture on a screen.

Question 5

reciprocal inhibition

Answer 5

The idea that you cannot be both anxious and relaxed at the same time.

Question 6

Systematic desensitisation A02
(Gradual exposure)

Answer 6

A fear hierarchy of the patients phobia will be established. The patient works their way up their fear hierarchy, starting at the least unpleasant stimuli and practicing their relaxation technique as they go.
When they feel comfortable with this they move on to the next stage in the hierarchy. If the client becomes upset they can return to an earlier stage.
Client repeatedly imagines (or confronted by) tis situation until it fails to evoke any anxiety at all, indicating success.
Process is repeated while working through all situations in the anxiety hierarchy until the most anxiety-provoking.

Question 7

Systematic desensitisation A03

Answer 7

strength- Supporting evidence for the success of SD by Capafons. There was a 90% success rate when treating acrophobia, the fear of flying.
Strength- more ethical than other treatments. Client controls pace at which they move through the anxiety hierarchy therefore causes much less distress and psychological harm than sudden and immediate exposure.
Weakness- Flooding may be a more effective treatment instead. It’s much quicker as the phobia extinction occurs much faster as well as a low drop out rate, therefore little chance of relapse.
Weakness- it only masks the symptoms of a phobia. Only changes the physiological response to phobic stimulus, doest address unhelpful/ irrational thoughts patients have from a traumatic event.

Question 8

Flooding A02

Answer 8

In order to demonstrate the irrationality of the fear, a patient is placed in a situation where they face their phobia at its worst. Under controlled conditions and using psychologically-proven relaxation techniques, the subject attempts to replace their fear with relaxation.

Question 9

Flooding A01

Answer 9

Flooding is a method for overcoming phobias based on pavlov’s classical conditioning. Unlike SD there is no gradual exposure; clients are exposed to the stimulus at the top of the hierarchy right from the start.
Anxiety, if maintained at such a high level, will eventually peak or stimulus satiation takes place. When a person experiences an alarm reaction the body is put on high alert, energy directed towards areas needed for a fight or flight response. As energy is used up and no more is available, the body will calm.
If a patient is prevented from making their normal escape/ avoidance, response extinction will occur.

Question 10

Flooding A03

Answer 10

Strength- research to support the reasoning behind Flooding by pavlov suggests that phobias are learnt in the first place through association. he conditioned a response of salivation when he sounded a bell, therefore indicating it can be un-learned by forming different associations.
Weakness- There are ethical concerns. side effects, the sessions aren’t very long and contain immediate exposure to what the patient finds distressing, therefore causing psychological harm and danger of backfiring, making the patient even more frightened of that thing.
Weakness- There is also the danger of spontaneous recovery, when the extinguished phobia suddenly returns, as the quick sessions could mean the therapy doesn’t successfully replace the fear-response with a different response, but with no response. Therefore allowing there original response to come back.

Question 11

phobias

Answer 11

irrational life limiting fear.