Phobias

Question 1

What are the DSM-5 categories of phobias?

Answer 1

• Catagorised by excessive fear and anxiety.
• Triggered by an object, place or situation.
• The extent of the fear is out of proportion to any real danger presented by the stimulus.
• Phobias fall under the classification of ‘anxiety disorders’.
• They’re instances of irrational fears that produce a conscious avoidance of the feared stimulus.

Question 2

What are examples of phobias?

Answer 2

• Social phobias.
• Specific phobias.
• Claustrophobias.
• Acrophobias.

Question 3

What are physical symptoms of phobias?

Answer 3

• Fight or flight response.
• Fainting.
• Increased heart rate.
• Perspiration.

Question 4

What is the DSM diagnostic criteria for phobias?

Answer 4

• Unreasonable and excessive fear.
• Immediate anxiety response.
• Recognition that the fear is irrational.
• Avoidance or extreme distress.
• Lifestyle limiting.
• Duration of six months.
• Not caused by another disorder.

Question 5

How is classical conditioning used to treat phobias?

Answer 5

Through a therapeutic technique called counterconditioning.

Question 6

What is counterconditioning?

Answer 6

• Where a client learns a new response to a stimulus that has previously elicited an undesirable behaviour.
• Two techniques are aversive conditioning and exposure therapy.

Question 7

What is aversive conditioning?

Answer 7

• Uses an unpleasant stimukus to stop an undesirable behaviour.
• The client will engage in a specific behaviour and at the same time they will be exposed to something unpleasant.
• After repeated associations between the behaviour and the unpleasant stimulus, the client can learn to stop the undesirable behaviour.

Question 8

What is exposure therapy?

Answer 8

• Presents the client with the object or situation that causes their problem.
• This can be done via reality, virtual reality or imagination.

Question 9

What are behavioural treatments for phobias?

Answer 9

• Flooding.
• Systematic desensitisation.

Question 10

What is flooding?

Answer 10

• The phobic individual is taught relaxation techniques by a therapist.
• They are exposed to the feared stimulus.
• They become distressed.
• They use the relaxation techniques.
• After a while they should feel less distressed.

Question 11

What is a weakness of flooding?

Answer 11

In the early stage it can be very distressing.

Question 12

What is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 12

• The phobic individual is exposed to the least feared item on their fear hierachy.
• The therapist helps them use relaxation techniques.
• After a while they should feel less distressed.
• The individual then moves onto the next level of their fear hierachy.

Question 13

What is a weakness of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 13

A slower process than flooding.

Question 14

What is a strength of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 14

Less distressing for the phobic individual.