SD and Flooding AO3

Question 1

Strengths SD

Answer 1

Effectiveness of SD: Research has found tat SD is successful for a range of phobic disorders. For example: McGrath et al, (1990) reported that about 75% of patients with phobias respond to SD. The key to success is actual contact with the feared stimulus, so in vivo techniques are more successful than ones just using pictures or imagining the feared stimulus (in vitro) (Choy et al, 2007).

SD can be a self-administrated - a method that has proved successful with, for example, social phobia (Humphrey, 1973). The RCT study conducted by Tarik Al-Kubaisy and colleagues in 1992, also found that self-administered therapy was effective as therapist-guided therapy, thus making it cheaper.

Question 2

Describe behavioral approach to treating phobias

Answer 2

Phobic disorder is classified as an anxiety disorder
-involves extreme anxiety related to a phobic stimulus
-causing avoidance of the stimulus.
Systematic desensitization developed by Wolpe
-attempts to replace the association between fear and the phobic stimulus with association between relaxation and the phobic stimulus.

Question 3

Weaknesses of SD

Answer 3

• SD may not be appropriate for all phobias: Ohman et al. (1975) suggests that SD may not be as effective in treating phobias that have an underlying evolutionary survival component (e.g. fear of the dark, heights or fear of dangerous animals), than in treating phobias which have been acquired as a result of personal experience.