Treating phobias - Systematic desensitisation Flashcards
What is the systematic desensitisation as a treatment for phobias?
The aim of the technique is to use the principles of association to replace the anxiety response with a relaxation response to help remove the phobia.
What are the stages of systematic desensitisation?
Fear hierarchy
Relaxation training
Graduated exposure
Reciprocal inhibition
What is a fear hierarchy?
Client and therapist construct a fear hierarchy which is a list of situations in which the client would feel anxiety, arranged from least to most.
What is relaxation training?
Client is taught different techniques for relaxing. This would include controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.
What is graduated exposure?
Over the course of 6 - 12 sessions, the client is gradually brought into contact with their phobic situation or object. They would make their way up the fear hierarchy and use their relaxation training.
What is reciprocal inhibition?
Two opposite emotions cannot coexist at the same time.
What is in vitro and in vivo?
In vitro - the client imagines exposure to the phobic stimulus
In vivo - the client is actually exposed to the phobic stimulus.
Is there research evidence to support systematic desensitisation?
Worpe found a 91% success rate of the method in 39 cases.
The 9% was due to special cases that did not allow for proper treatment.
Is systematic desensitisation superficial?
Does not deal with the root cause of phobias.
Suppressing the symptoms may result in other symptoms appearing.
Could develop a further phobic response to new things.
Is systematic desensitisation ethical?
More ethical as based on classical conditioning - not like flooding.
Patients are given more control of procedure and will only move on when they are ready.
Is systematic desensitisation useful?
Complex/ social phobias do not respond well and relapse rates are high.
Crashe and Barlow found that between 60-80% only showed minor improvement and relapsed after 6 months.
