Psychopathology : Phobias

Question 1

What is phobia?

Answer 1

A phobia is an anxiety disorder where a person experiences an excessive/irrational response towards a specific object or situation; The extent of the fear is completely out of all proportion to the actual stimulus.

Question 2

What are the three types of phobias?

Answer 2

Specific phobias, social phobia and Agoraphobia

Question 3

What is a specifc phobia?

Answer 3

The fear of specific objects or situations

• Example : spiders|snakes|the dark

Question 4

What is a social phobia?

Answer 4

Anxiety relating to social situations
* Example : Public speakking/talking to a group of people|using a public toilet

Question 5

What is Agoraphobia?

Answer 5

A fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult or that help wouldn’t be available if things go wrong

Question 6

What are the three characteristics of a phobia?

Answer 6

Beahvioural, emotional coginitive

Question 7

What are the behavioural characteristics of a phobia?

Answer 7

Panic, avoidance and Freeze

Question 8

What are the emotional characteristics of a phobia?

Answer 8

Excessive and unreasonable :
* Fear
* Anxiety
* Panic

Question 9

What are the coginitive characteristics of a phobia?

Answer 9

To do with thoughts
* Selective attention to the stimulus
* Irrationality of thoughts and resistance to reason
* Recognition that fear is excessive
* Cognitive disortions

Question 10

How does behaviourism explain phobias?

Answer 10

Orvval Morwer (1947)
* Phobias are learnt and and maintained through operant and classical conditioning
* Proposed the two process model

Question 11

How are phobias learned using classical conditioning?

Answer 11

Phobias are acquired through an association
* Classical conditioning
* NS is associated with an US
* produces a CS and CR
Stimulus generalisation

Question 12

What research supports phobias being learned by association?

Answer 12

Watson and Raynor(1920) - Little Albert
* Conditioned little Albert to be afraid of the white rat

Question 13

How are phobias maintained?

Answer 13

Operant conditioning
* Avoidance of/ escape from stimulus
* Rewarding→Negative reinforcement
Behaviour that is rewarded is repeated/learned

Question 14

What is a strength of the behavioural explanation for phobias?

Answer 14

Strength: Application to therapy
A strength of the behavioural explanation is its application to therapy.

• The behaviourist ideas have been used to develop treatments, including systematic desensitisation and flooding.
• Systematic desensitisation helps people to unlearn their fears, using the principles of classical conditioning, while flooding prevents people from avoiding their phobias and stops the negative reinforcement from taking place.
  Consequently, these therapies have been successfully used to treat people with phobias, providing further support for the effectiveness of the behaviourist explanation.

Question 15

What is a strength of the behavioural explanation for phobias?

Answer 15

Strength : Research support for classical condtioning
* Watson & Rayner (1920) demonstrated the process of classical conditioning in the formation of a phobia in Little Albert, who was conditioned to fear white rats.

→However, since this was a case study, it is difficult to generalise the findings to other children or even adults due to the unique nature of the investigation.

Question 16

What is a strength of the behavioural explanation for phobias?

Answer 16

Strength : Phobias and traumatic events
A further strength of the two-process model is evidence for a link between bad experiences and phobias.

• For example De Jongh et al. (2006) found that 73% of people with a fear of dental treatment had experienced a traumatic event involving dentistry, or violent crime), compared to a control group of low dental anxiety, where only 21% of people had experienced a traumatic event.
• The confirms the idea that the association between stimulus (dentistry) and an unconditioned response (pain) does lead to the development of phobias.

Question 17

What is a weakness of the behavioural explanations for phobias?

Answer 17

Weakness : not all phobias appear following a traumatic experience

• In fact many common phobias, such as spiders and snakes, occur in a population where very few people report traumatic experiences. Also we have to keep in mind that not all bad experiences lead to phobias.
• This means that the association between traumatic events and phobias may not be as strong as the theory suggests and it is possible that other factors are at play, such as evolution.

Question 18

What is a weakness of the behavioural explanations for phobias?

Answer 18

Weakness : Coginitive Elements
Another limitation of the two process model is that there are cognitive aspects to phobias that cannot be explained in a behaviourist framework and are therefore ignored.

• An alternative explanation for phobias is the cognitive approach, which proposes that phobias may develop as the consequence of irrational thinking.
• For example a person in a lift may think “I could become trapped and suffocate (irrational thought), which could lead to extreme anxiety and trigger a phobia.
• The value of this particular explanation is that it has led to cognitive therapies such as CBT, which are in some cases, such as social phobia (Engels et al.,1993) more successful that behaviourist treatments.

Question 19

What is a weakness of the behavioural explanations of phobias?

Answer 19

Weakness : Biological preparedness
There is a claim that the behavioural approach may not provide a complete explanation of phobias.

• For example, Bounton (2007) highlights the fact that evolutionary factors could play a role in phobias, especially if the avoidance of a particular stimulus (e.g. snakes) could have increased change of survival for our ancestors.
• Consequently, evolutionary psychologists suggest that we are predisposed to some phobias (e.g. snakes and heights) as they are in fact innate, rather than learnt, as such phobias acted as a survival mechanism for our ancestors.
• This innate predisposition to certain phobias is called biological preparedness (Seligman, 1971) and casts doubt on the two‐process model since it suggests that there is more to phobias than learning.

Question 20

What are the behavioural treatments for phobias called?

Answer 20

1. Systematic desensitisation
2. Flooding

Question 21

What is systematic desentisation?

Answer 21

A behavioural therapy designed to reduce a response to a stimulus

Question 22

What does systematic desentisation involve?

Answer 22

• It uses counter-condtioning to help patients ‘unlearn’ their phobias, by elciting another response : relacation instead of fear.

Question 23

What are the steps of systematic desentisation?

Answer 23

1. Anxiety Hierarchy
2. Relaxation
3. Exposure

Question 24

What is the first step of systematic desentisation?

Answer 24

1: Anxiety Hierarchy
* The patient and the therapist work together to create an anxiety hierarchy, ranking phobic situations from least to most anxiety inducing

Question 25

What is the second step of systematic desentisation?

Answer 25

2: Relaxation
* The patient is also taught relaxation techniques, such as breathing techniques, meditation, and mindfullness

Question 26

What is the third step of systematic desentisation?

Answer 26

3: Exposure
* Finally, the patient works through their fear hierarchy, starting at the bottom. When patients are able to remain relaxed at each stage, they are allowed to progress to the next stage.

• Fear and relaxtion cannot exist at the same time = reciprocal inhibition

Question 27

What is Flooding?

Answer 27

Immediate and complete exposure to the phobic stimulus
* No gradual build up or relaxtion techniques

Question 28

What is involved in Flooding?

Answer 28

• Sessions are often longer than with Sd but often only one session is needed
• Without the option of avoidance clients quickly learn that the phobic stimulus is harmless

Question 29

What are the processes involved in Flooding?

Answer 29

• Extinction - A learned response is extinguished when the conditioned stimulus is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus
• The stimulus will no longer produce the conditioned response
• Could also occur through exhaustion

Question 30

What is a strength of systematic desentisation?

Answer 30

Strength : Effectiveness of Systematic desentisation
Further support comes from Gilroy et al. (2002) who examined 42 patients with arachnophobia (fear of spiders).

• Each patient was treated using three 45‐minute systematic desensitisation sessions.
• When examined three months and 33 months later, the systematic desensitisation group were less fearful than a control group (who were only taught relaxation techniques).
• This provides support for systematic desensitisation as an effective treatment for phobias in the long‐term

Question 31

What is a weakess of Flooding?

Answer 31

Weakness : Flooding is highly traumatic
Although flooding is considered a cost‐effective solution, it can be highly traumatic for patients since it purposefully elicits a high level of anxiety.

• Schumacher et al. (2015) found that participants and patients rated flooding as significantly more stressful than SD.
• Although it is not unethical as patients provide fully informed consent, many do not complete their treatment because the experience is too stressful.
• Therefore, initiating flooding treatment is sometimes a waste of time and money if patients do not engage in or complete the full course of their treatment.

Question 32

What is a weakness of using behavioural therapies for phobias?

Answer 32

Weakness : Symptom Subsitition
Behavioural therapies may not work with certain phobias because the symptoms are only the tip of the iceberg.

• If the symptoms are removed the cause still remains and the symptoms will simply resurface, possibly in another form.
• For example, a child struggling to cope with a bereavement may displace their anxiety about death on to something more tangible and easier to deal with such as a fear of leaving the house. If this is the case then it makes sense that the real source of anxiety then needs to be treated not the displaced fear.
• Although behaviourists claim that most if not all phobias come about through conditioning, this lack of focus on potential underlying causes of phobias could be problematic and is a limitation of behavioural therapies.

Question 33

What is a strength of using behavioural therapies for phobias?

Answer 33

Strength : Genral strength of behavioural therapies
Behavioural therapies for dealing with phobias are generally faster, cheaper and require less effort on the patients part than other psychotherapies.

• For example CBT requires a willingness for people to think about their mental problems, which is not the case for behavioural therapies.
• This lack of “thinking” means that the technique is also useful for people who lack insight into their motivations or emotions, such as children or patients with learning difficulties.
• This is a strength as it means that behavioural therapies are applicable and helpful to a wide and diverse range of individuals giving it a greater scope to help people deal with their problems.