Psychopathology - Behavioral approach - treatments

Question 1

what are the two types of treatments?

Answer 1

Flooding or systematic desensitisation

Question 2

what does counter conditioning do ?

Answer 2

part of systematic desensitsation - it helps remove an anexiety response and it with a relaxation response.

Question 3

what does counter conditioning deal with?

Answer 3

avoidance behaviour

Question 4

what concept is counter conditioning based on?

Answer 4

reciprocal conditioning

Question 5

What is reciprocal conditioning?

Answer 5

The idea that you cannot be in two emotional states at the same time

Question 6

What 3 steps does systematic desentisation involve?

Answer 6

Hierarchy of anxiety
Relaxation technique
Graduated exposure

Question 7

What is hierarchy of anxiety

Answer 7

Listing least to most anxiety provoking situation

Question 8

What are relaxation techniques?

Answer 8

Techniques which help feel calmer. Eg deep breathing or exercises

Question 9

What is graduated exposure?

Answer 9

When the patient works through the hierarchy of anxiety list and everytime they feel anxious they use a relaxation technique, they can’t work their way up if they are not cam

Question 10

What is flooding?

Answer 10

Flooding involves immediate exposure to the phobia, not graduated and there is no escape.

Question 11

Why does flooding work?

Answer 11

The anxiety response can only be sustained for a while after the anxiety response will subside and
The patient will feel calm.

Question 12

Why do you have to be in a calm state?

Answer 12

Now you would associate the phobic situation with the relaxed state.

Question 13

Evaluation of sd strengths (3)

Answer 13

Effective therapy
Diverse range of people
Preferred choice of clients

Question 14

Evaluation of SD - weakness (2)

Answer 14

Problems with using ‘in vitro’
Sd may not deal with underlying cause
Sd may notdeal with the underlying cause

Question 15

Flooding evaluation - strengths (2)

Answer 15

-Quicker treatment
- effective

Question 16

Evaluation-flooding weakness (2)

Answer 16

-Can be traumatic
- not effective for complex phobias

Question 17

Difference between invivo and invitro

Answer 17

Invivo desentisation is a confrontation of the real situation or object that causes the anxiety whereas invitro desentisiation is corrried out through imagery of the feared object situation

Question 18

Explain the evaluation of sd ettecive therapy

Answer 18

Effective treatment for specific phobias . Capafons et al (1998) carried out a study on 41 peoz0ple with a fear of flying. SD therapy was given to 20 people and the other 21 acted as the control group (no therapy given). The researchers found that the participants who had recieved SD showed reduced anxiety about flying in a flight stimulation compared to control group. This shows that SD is effective in reducing anxiety in acrophobic patients. SD is effective for a wide range of phobias (espeicially when used in vivo) as another researcher reported that about 75% of phobics respond to SD.

Question 19

explain strength of sd - diverse range of people

Answer 19

• suitable for range of clients - alternative such as flooding and cognitive therapies are not suited for some clients - e.g young children or those with certain health conditions or learning difficulties - they may struggle to understand what is happening during blooding - or to engage with cognitive therapies which required reflection - for these types of clients SD is most appropriate treatment.

Question 20

explain the strngth of sd - preffered choice of clients

Answer 20

• often the clients preffered choice of treatment - given a choice between flooding or sd choose sd - this is because it dosent caause the same level of trauma as flooding - sd allows people to make progress in small steps in their own time which allows them to be in control . - another reason is that sd include some pleasent elements - like time talking with a therapist - reflected in low refusal rates and low attrition rates for SD. this makes SD more suitable for a wider range of clients.

Question 21

explain the weakeness - problems using in vitro

Answer 21

limitaion of in vitro SD - relies on clients ability to be able to imagine a fearful situation . some people cannot create a vivid image and thus SD is not effective. furthermore , in vitro SD may be effective for a client in a therepuetic situation but there is no guarantee that it will work for them once they face their situation in the real world.

Question 22

Explain the weakness of SD - may not not deal with underlying cause

Answer 22

another limitation of sd is that it does not deal with the real underlying cause of the development of phobias and anxiety disorders but only with the symptoms. for example the psychodynamic approach claims that many phobic symptoms are often the product of repressed unconscious conflict in the mind. so changing a persons behavior to deal with the phobia does not eliminate the disorder. this may lead to symptom substitution which means the phobia is removed this time but not the underlying causes which may lead this to reappeasr as another behavioral symptom.

Question 23

explain the strength of flooding - quicker treatment

Answer 23

more cost effect treatment than other therapies. this is because flooding does not require a hierarchy of fear responses to be constructed. instead the therapy involves exposing the client to the most feared situation. this means that the therapy involves less time and is therefore less expensive than sd. this is a strength as id clients are treated more quickly this makes it more cost effective for health service providers (e.g nhs)

Question 24

explain the strength of flooding - effective

Answer 24

apart from being a quick treatment compared to other therapies. there is also supporting research evidence to show that flooding tends to be more effective. research has suggested that when compared to other forms of treatment like sd and cbt flooding is significantly more effective (choy et al) however another review concluded that sd and flooding were equally effective in the treatment of phobias.

Question 25

explain the weakness of flooding - can be traumatic

Answer 25

a weakness of flooding as a treatment is that although ut us a cist effective solution it can be highly traumatic for clients and cause a high level of anxiety. although the client provides informed consent there are many who do not complete their course of the treatment. this is because they are placed under an anxiety provoking situation for many hours and find such an experience too stressful. this means that flooding can be a waste of time and money if clients do not finish their therapy and thus may not be a very effective form of a treatment

Question 26

explain the weakness of flooding - not effective for complex phobias

Answer 26

does not work on all types of phobias and appears to be less effecctive on complex phobias such as social phobias. one of the reasons is tha social phobia has a cognitive elemnt to them e.g a sufferer of social phobia does not just experience anxiety but also has negative thoughts about the social situation. this suggests that for certain types of phobias cognitive therapies such as cbt may be more benefcial because they tackle the irrational thinking aspect of phobias.