Psychopathology - Treating phobias

Question 1

AO3

Answer 1

• • A strength of systematic desensitisation (SD) is the evidence base for its effectiveness
• For example, Gilroy et al followed 42 people who had SD for arachnophobia in three 45 minute sessions
• This is a strength because the SD group were less fearful than the control group treated by relaxation without exposure, showing evidence that SD is likely to be effective for people with phobias
• However, this has limitations as not all phobias can be treated the way arachnophobia was treated in the case study. Social fears like
• having a fear of love or relationships cannot be overcome this way.
• Despite this, a review concluded that SD is effective for specific phobias, social phobia and agoraphobia
• Thus increasing the reliability of systematic desensitisation for treating phobias
• A weakness of flooding is that it is a highly unpleasant experience
• For example, Schumacher et al found that participants and therapists rated flooding as scientifically more stressful than SD
• This is a weakness because it raises the ethical issues for psychologists of knowingly causing stress to their clients on top of the trauma they face from the phobia. Therefore showing how flooding is a highly unpleasant experience
• However some may argue that this is a serious issue as the psychologist / therapist have to obtain informed consent from the patient thus showing that the patients have to be aware of what they are going to experience
• Despite this, the traumatic nature of flooding means that dropout rates are high for flooding compared to SD
• Thus reducing the usefulness of using this treatment to treat phobias
• Generalised - A weakness for behaviourist methods of treatment methods is that it does not address how phobias may be maintained due to cognitive processing. Behaviourism takes a more reductionist view on phobias and this is a weakness as ignoring the interacting factors and the complexities of human behaviour, we are at risk of losing a real understanding of human behaviour behind phobias
• .For example, there is evidence to suggest that phobias could symbolise unconscious anxieties, therefore the real cause of the behaviour is ignored, therefore reducing the effectiveness of treatment.
• Some psychologists may argue that the benefit of having a more reductionist viewpoint is that it can help identify simple casual factors for behaviour and once the cause is identified - for example a fear of sharks because you were bitten by one – it is much easier to modify the behaviour through treatments such as systematic desensitisation by counter conditioning the phobia.
• Despite this, the reductionist view of behaviourism reduces the validity of the application of the approach to phobias due to the lack of context taken into account.
• Thus reducing the validity of treatment methods for phobias

Question 2

AO1

Answer 2

• Phobias – An irrational fear of an object or a situation
• Behavioural – ways in which people act (actions we complete)
   Crying, screaming, running away, remaining in the presence of that behaviour
• Emotional – related to a person’s feelings or mood (feelings we have)
   Anxiety, fear of seeing object, emotional reactions that are unreasonable
• Cognitive – refers to the process of ‘knowing’, including thinking, reasoning, remembering, believing (mental processes we think)
   Beliefs about the world are distorted, abnormal processing of the object, individuals hold irrational beliefs, anxious thoughts, difficulty divert attention
• Systematic desensitisation (SD) – A behavioural therapy designed to reduce an unwanted response such as anxiety. SD involves drawing up a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to a person’s phobic stimulus, teaching the person to relax, and then exposing them to phobic situations. The person works their way through the hierarchy whilst maintaining relaxation.
• Flooding – A behavioural therapy in which a person a phobic is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered by that stimulus. This takes place across a small number of long therapy sessions