TREATMENTS OF PHOBIAS

Question 1

what is flooding?

Answer 1

• Flooding involves immediately exposing the patient to the phobic stimulus, but without the gradual anxiety build up.
• There is no anxiety hierarchy, and they are thrown in the deep end straight away.
• The patient cannot exhibit avoidant behaviour, and so they quickly learn the stimulus is harmless.
• Prolonged intense exposure eventually creates a new association between the feared object and something positive
• (e.g. a sense of calm and lack of anxiety).
• It also prevents reinforcement of phobia through escape or avoidance behaviours

Question 2

systematic desensitization is based on cc aims to counter condition

Answer 2

• behavioural therapy designed to gradually reduce phobic anxiety, it is
  based on the principles of classical conditioning.
• It aims to replace the associated fear response with a relaxation response instead.

Question 3

anxiety hierachy

Answer 3

• the therapist teaches the patient relaxation techniques, e.g. breathing exercises/meditation.
• Then, an anxiety hierarchy is made, (list of situations related to the phobia that-provokes anxiety gradually).
• It starts with the least frightening and builds up to the most frightening.

Question 4

relaxation practised at highest level of the hierachy

Answer 4

• Then next step is exposure the sufferer is exposed to the phobic stimuli whilst they are in a relaxed state.
• Only once they can stay calm at the stimulus can they progress to the next slightly higher anxiety step of the hierarchy.
• The treatment is considered successful once the individual can stay relaxed in the highest anxiety situations.

Question 5

time consuming

Answer 5

• For example, it takes 6-8 sessions on average. This is
  because it’s a gradual process as it requires the patients to be completely calm before moving up the anxiety hierarchy.
• disadvantage as the patient will have to take a great amount of time off of work which causes disruption to their lives and they’re unable to contribute to the economy.
• Furthermore, if the patients dislike the approach they may simply drop out and never overcome the phobia.
• Also, symptom substitution may occur where the phobia may just be replaced by another phobia as a result of the therapy

Question 6

research evi

Answer 6

• For example, Sreenivasan et al conducted a case study on two sisters who had a phobia of dogs, Systematic desensitisation didn’t work for them, but flooding did.
• They found that after using flooding, their anxiety levels dropped dramatically.
• Adv as it works for cases where SD doesn’t work- and demonstrates the effectiveness of the treatment.
• However, it was a case study so it had a limited sample and so we cannot draw generalisable conclusions from one person

Question 7

limited usefullness

Answer 7

• One limitation of both SD and flooding is that it has limited usefulness. For example, it cannot be used to treat social phobias.
• Social phobias have a cognitive element which is not solved by behavioural therapies.
• This means it’s not useful for people with more complex phobias, and has limited application.
• This is a disadvantage as it’s not appropriate for many patients, and thus isn’t useful in some cases.

Question 8

cost effective - flooding

Answer 8

• For example, only a few sessions are required for the full effect of the therapy.
• This means that the quality of life of patients can be improved much quicker than SD.
• This is an advantage as patients are free of their symptoms quicker, accelerates the rate of recovery and thus highlighting the treatment is increasingly effective