Phobias Depression And OCD Flashcards
Explain what phobias are and how they are categorised?
A phobia is an excessive fear if something whereby the extent of the fear is irrational to the real danger presented by the phobic situation.
3 categories- specific phobia of an object or situation- flying
Social phobia- an excessive fear of a social environment such as public speaking
Agoraphobia- phobia of being out in a public space
Behavioural characteristics of phobias/ emotional/ cognitive
3 types of responses to fear- panic, involving crying or screaming or running away
Avoidance- stay away from the phobia and make a conscious effort to stay away from this in a day e.g waiting all day to go home to use the toilet and drinking minimal water while at work
Endurance- when a person stays with the phobia and keeps a weary eye on it instead of leaving it such as a reason with arachnophobia watching spider on ceiling but not leaving
Anxiety
Fear
And an emotional response is unreasonable
Cog distortions
Selective attention to phobia- as we want to keep an eye on it so we put our selves in the best chance to react to it quickly if we know where it is
Irrational beliefs- believe something that isn’t true is going to happen
Phobias- classical conditioning. How we get a phobia?
The evaluation points of this
Via classical conditioning- behavioural approach
Association between the anxiety provoking ucs and a previously neutral stimulus. E.g a child who has no previous fear of dogs gets bitten by a dog and now become feared of dogs as they associate the dog with pain and therefore fear. Afraid of all dogs due to generalisation
Research support- little Albert study by Watson and Rayner used classical conditioning to create a phobia of a white rat. By playing a loud noise when the child saw the rat therefore the child associated the rat with this loud sound
Limitations- some people have experiences whereby they are in an anxiety provoking situation however they do not develop this fear. This shows individual differences are present
Additionally- phobias may be evolutionary so are nature rather than nurture, this states that phobias are developed however from an evolutionary stance phobias may be developed to keep people alive
Systematic desensitisation to solving phobias + eval
Systematic desensitisation- type of behavioural therapy of classical conditioning to develop resistance to phobia- step 1 create ad yes a breathing excessive that can help participant relax
Then establish a hierarchy of fear whereby they propose what would cause then low anxiety and then to finish what would cause the most anxiety.
4-6 sessions and able to move onto the next stage when they are able to relax in that stage using their technique
Eval- slow process whereby takes a long time- sp may not solve fear as participant becomes uninterested
Supporting evidence- empirical evidence Rothbaum found that people who had a fear of flying 93% of them agreed to take a trial flight and was found that anxiety levels were lower than those of the control group who did not receive SD.
Unable to solve social phobias
Treatment to phobias flooding+ eval
Works by exposing patient to their worst fear and putting them into there most anxiety provoking position immediately. Such as locking someone who is clasutrophobic in a small closet for 7 hours.
This is thought to work to ensure that the patient expierneces there worst fear in a controlled environment so they will then not fear smaller situations, by causing them to feel imediate fear however eventually due to exhaustion the person will be able to relax and there feel calm and confront their fears. Able to make a new association with this fear as they are now calm
Eval- unethical- protection from harm expiernece high levels of anxiety that may cause more damage than the treatment putting them in a worst position than to begin with
Research support- Wolpe forced girl into car who had a phobia of cars and by the end of the 4 hour journey felt calm and phobia disappeared
Depression behavioural emotional/ cog characteristics
Emotional Lowered mood- feeling worthless or empty
Anger-
Lowered self esteem
Usually lowerered energy levels making them incapable of getting out of bed
Beh Sometimes have excess energy levels
Disturbed sleep and eating patterns-
Aggression and self harm -
Cog - Poor concentration
Paying more attention to negative situations
Absolutist thinking- they think that all situations are all good or all bad
Ellis abc model
Ellis states that it is not the activating event that causes depression however it is the irrational thoughts that come from the event that causes depression. He states that each of us hold a unique set of assumptions and these become tampered with due to events and therefore can cause depression
CBT to depression treatment
Cognitive behaviour therapy works by challenging their irrational thought processes in order to change the behaviour as a response to new thinking patterns.
By asking questions and challenging the thinking of the patient they will then think about why they think this . Then the cognitive therapist will help clients to recognise negative thoughts and errors in their logic which is causing them to be depressed and guide them to think about things in a different way so they are able to learn to discriminate between their own thoughts and reality. They are then set homework to try and beat their faulty thinking such as meeting friend in pub for a drink when they think that no one likes them.
A03- Effectvely treats depression
Very ethical doesn’t rely on medicine
WHAT IS OCD?
Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterised by intrinsic and uncontrollable thoughts and obsessions, coupled with a need to perform acts repeatedly known as compulsions
E.g fear of contamination of a diseases
Compulsions are behavioural responses intended to neuteralize these obsessions . If these are not neutralised they believe something bad will happen
Cognitive obsessive thoughts dominate the mind
Emotional worry and distress
Behavioural respepetive compulsive behaviours performed e.g continuously washing hand or
A03-
Biological approach for explaining OCD
A polygenic condition whereby multiple genes are involved in its development
Found a decrease in level of serotonin in sysnapse as there has been a mutation in the serotonin transporter as mutation in transporter proteins at a neurons membrane
The COMT gene is a gene that regulates the function of dopamine mutated in those with OCD higher levels fo dopamine
Eval- Research evidence Gottsman and Carey found that in identical twins concordance rates of 87% of OCD compared to 2% of population
However, this may be due to the environment in which the twins live in and as it is the same they both develop OCD therefore is unable to fully explain why people have OCD
