Phobias Flashcards
Anxiety disorder
Used to describe a group of disorders that are characterised by chronic feelings of anxiety, distress, nervousness and apprehension OR fear about the future…all with a negative effect
Phobias
An excessive or unreasonable fear directed towards a particular object, situation or event that causes significant distress or interferes with everyday functioning
According to the DSM, phobias are divided into 3 categories
1) agoraphobia (afraid of public or unfamiliar places)
2) social phobia
3 specific phobia
A specific phobia
Is a disorder characterised by significant anxiety provoked by exposure to a specific fear object or situation, often resulting in avoidance behaviour
According to the DSM a specific disorder must persist for at least 6 months and significantly interfere with their everyday life
Exposure to phobias
Exposure to the phobic stimulus triggers are involuntary anxiety response that is like the stress response (fight/flight)
the biopsychosocial modelled specific phobias
Biological
Psychological
Social-cultural factors
Biological
Biological factors involve the brains neurochemistry, particularly the neurotransmitter
Psychological
Origins of phobias: behavioural and cognitive models
and management: flooding and graduated exposure
Social-cultural factors
That contribute to phobias: specific environments triggers, parental modelling and transmission of threat information
And management: non-fear modelling and obtaining accurate info and facts
Behavioural model
Phobias are learned through experience and may be acquired, maintained or modified by environmental consequences such as rewards and punishment
Classical conditioning
UCS + CS = CR
Operant conditioning
Negative reinforcement tend to maintain a phobia
Positive reinforcers tend to strengthen or increase the likelihood of a phobia response in the future
Responding -> Consequence = Behaviour
(Avoidance) (Fear/anxiety (Maintained or
reduced) Increased due to
neg reinforcement)
Cognitive model
Focuses on how people process information and how people think about the phobic stimulus and related events
4 types of cognitive bias
1) attention all bias
2) memory bias
3) interpretive bias
4) catastrophic thinking
Attentional bias
Seeks out and notice threatening stimuli over normal stimuli e.g. Hyper vigilant
Memory bias
Recall or recognition is better for negative or threatening information than for positive or neutral info
e.g. Remember that 1 bad fall over the 100 good times
Interpretive bias
The tendency to interpret or judge ambiguous situations in a threatening manner
E.g. Dog running up is going to attack Vs running to say hi
Catastrophic thinking
A type of negative thinking in which an object or event is perceived as being far more threatening, dangerous or insufferable that it really is and will result in the worst outcome
E.g. If I fail my mum will kill me
Specific environmental triggers
Include ‘specific’ objects or situations in the ‘environment’ produce or ‘trigger’ an extreme fear response at the time- hence a ‘specific environmental trigger’
The more severe the trauma the more likely it is that a phobia will develop
Parental modelling
A specific phobia can be developed through the observation and subsequent modelling of another persons fearful behaviour
E.g. Child scared of mice because parents are scared and display fear responses in the presence of their child
Transmission of threat information
Delivery of info from any secondary source
E.g. Others (parents, friends, teachers, media) about a potential threat or danger of a object or situation e.g. Scared of flying after watching air crash investigation
Anxiety
A state of physiological arousal associated with feelings of apprehension, unease or worry that something is wrong or something unpleasant is about to happen
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Combining cognitive and behavioural therapies together to help people manage a mental health problem/disorder (CBT for phobias: changing the thoughts and behaviours about a fear stimulus)
Aim of the CBT
To develop a new understanding of the phobic stimulus
- identify anxiety related thoughts and cognitive biases
- look at evidence that supports/rejects these biases
- switch from unhelpful irrational thoughts to evidence based rational thoughts
Steps in behavioural component
1) make a prediction
2) review the evidence for and against
3) devise an experiment to test this
4) note the results
5) draw conclusions
