Treatment for phobia's

Question 1

What two ways can phobias be treated?

Answer 1

• Systemic desensitisation

- flooding

Question 2

What is systemic desensitisation?

Answer 2

It is a treatment for phobias, it is a form of counter conditioning in which the patient learns to replace the fear response with a relaxation response when the phobia inducing stimulus is present. This is done to reduce anxiety through gradual exposure of the phobia inducing stimulus and it is based on reciprocal inhibition.

Question 3

What are the three processes involved in systemic desensitisation?

Answer 3

• Anxiety hierarchy (A hierarchy of situations where a the phobia inducing stimulus is developed in order based on the levels of anxiety it produces starting from lowest and ending in highest levels of anxiety in order)
• Relaxation (relaxation techniques will be taught to the patient before they are treated and during the treatment so they learn to replace their learned fear response they have associated with the phobic stimulus with a relaxation response.)
• Gradual exposure (Throughout the levels of anxiety hierarchy the sufferer will be exposed to their phobic stimulus slowly in a controlled way to and this will be paired with relaxation to learn their relaxation response and replace the fear response. Patients can only move on from a level in the anxiety hierarchy when they are completely calm and comfortable at the current stage)

Question 4

identify evaluation points for systemic desensitisation?

Answer 4

• Spider research Gillroy (3 months and 33 months compared to relaxation group) this is further supported by Choy’s research that actual contact and gradual exposure provides better treatment than just imagining a situation
• only works on phobias that are learned and not on a phobia that has an underlying evolutionary component
• It is faster at getting results compared to cognitive therapy and it also requires less will power and commitment from the patient, this will be highly beneficial to someone who lacks insight into their own thoughts and emotions such as someone with learning difficulties.

Question 5

What is flooding?

Answer 5

A treatment which involves direct confrontation of the phobia inducing stimulus rather than gradual exposure through a hierarchy. The person with the phobia cannot avoid the phobia inducing stimulus and the anxiety produced will eventually reduce which then causes them to overcome the phobia.

Question 6

Outline how Gilroy support SD

Answer 6

P: Girloy has supporting evidence to support systemic desensitisation

E: He conducted a study which compared people who had arachnophobia receiving two different treatments. The first group received systemic desensitisation and the second group received relaxation treatment without gradual exposure.

E:He found that the people who received SD at 3 months and at 33 months had improvements with their phobic symptoms whenever the phobia inducing stimulus was present

L: This then supports the role of gradual exposure and highlights how effective SD is in treating phobias

Question 7

Outline how Choy supports SD?

Answer 7

Choy provides research evidence supporting how systemic desensitisation is an effective treatment to treat phobias

Choy compared to groups of people who had phobias the first group received systemic desensitisation the second group received a imagery technique also known as a Vivo technique which involved imagining the phobic stimulus.

The findings included that the group who received systemic desensitisation had improvements with their phobic symptoms compared to those who did the imagery technique which supports the idea that gradual exposure is effective in treating phobias.