PATH 01 - Phobias characteristics and explanations 1

Question 1

What is psychopathology?

Answer 1

The study of the origin, development, diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioural disorders

Question 2

What is a phobia?

Answer 2

• An irrational fear of an object or situation
• Fear response is out of proportion to actual threat
• Classified into three different types

Question 3

What is the meaning of behavioural?

Answer 3

Ways in which people act and can be observed

Question 4

What is the meaning of emotional?

Answer 4

Related to a person’s feelings or mood

Question 5

What is the meaning of cognitive?

Answer 5

Refers to the process of ‘knowing’, including thinking, reasoning, remembering, believing, information processing

Question 6

What is the DSM?

Answer 6

• Stands for Diagnostic and Statisical Manual
• A system for classifying and diagnosing mental health problems
• It is published by the American Psychiatric Association
• The current version is the 5th edition so it is commonly called the DSM-5, it was published in 2013

Question 7

What are the different types of phobias? And what are their meanings?

Answer 7

• Specific phobias => e.g. of objects, animals or specific situations
• Social anxiety/phobia => e.g. of social situations, such as public speaking
• Agoraphobia => i.e. fear of being outside/in a public space (somewhere it is difficult to ‘escape’ from to a ‘safe’ place)

Question 8

What are the characteristics of phobias?

Answer 8

• Behavioural
• Emotional
• Cognitive

Question 9

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 9

• Panic => someone may panic in response to the presence of the phobic stimulus. Panic may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming or running away
• Avoidance => using a lot of effort to prevent coming into contact with the phobic stimulus. This can make it hard to go about daily life
• Endurance => when a person chooses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus

Question 10

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 10

• Anxiety => phobias are classed as anxiety disorders. By definition they involve an emotional response of anxiety, an unpleasant state of high physiological arousal. This prevents a person relaxing and makes it very difficult to experience any positive emotion. Anxiety can be long term.
• Fear => fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we counter or thing about a phobic stimulus. It is usually more intense but experienced for short periods than anxiety.
• Emotional response is unreasonable => the anxiety or fear is much greater than is ‘normal’ and disproportionate to any threat posed

Question 11

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 11

• Selective attention to the phobic stimulus => if a person can see the phobic stimulus, it is hard to look away from it. Keeping our attention on something really dangerous is a good thing as it gives us the best chance of reacting quickly to a threat, but this is not so useful when the fear is irrational.
• Irrational beliefs => A person with a phobia may hold unfounded thoughts in relation to phobic stimuli, i.e. that can’t easily be explained and don’t have any basis in reality. This kind of belief increases the pressure on the person to perform well in social situations.
• Cognitive distortions => The perceptions of a person with a phobia may be inaccurate and unrealistic.