Phobias

Question 1

What are the behavioural characteristics of Phobias?

Answer 1

Panic:
- Crying
- Screaming
- Running away from the phobic
stimulus

Avoidance:
- Putting effort into not coming into contact with the phobic stimulus
- Makes everyday life tricky if the
stimulus is a commonly seen thing

Question 2

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

Selective attention:
- Often hard to look away from the stimulus or concentrate on anything else

Irrational beliefs:
- About what other people are thinking of them
- Or how harmful the stimulus is

Question 3

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

Fear:
- The immediate experience when thinking about or in contact with the phobic stimulus

Anxiety:
- Fear most often leads to anxiety

Unreasonable responses:
- Emotional response is
disproportionate to the stimulus

Question 4

What is the behavioural approach to explaining phobias?

Answer 4

The Two-Process Model:
- Developed by Mowrer (1960)
- He argued that phobias are learned through classical conditioning…
- …and maintained through operant conditioning.

Question 5

What are the behavioural treatments for phobias?

Answer 5

• Systematic Desensitisation
• Flooding

Question 6

What are the aims of systematic desensitization ?

Answer 6

• Aim is to gradually reduce anxiety through
  counterconditioning…
• Reciprocal inhibition occurs – it isn’t possible to be fearful
  and relaxed at the same time, so one emotion has to be ignored.

Question 7

What is the process of systematic desensitization?

Answer 7

• The patient and therapist design an anxiety hierarchy
• This is a list of fear-inducing stimuli arranged in order from least to most frightening
• Relaxation techniques are taught to the patient, such as deep breathing and/or meditation
• The patient uses these techniques at each stage of
  the hierarchy, until they are able to feel relaxed while being exposed to that stage’s challenge.
• This happens over several sessions, and the treatment is successful when the person is able to stay calm in the highest fear scenario

Question 8

What is the aim of flooding?

Answer 8

Involves the patient being immediately exposed to
the phobic stimulus without the gradual build up

Question 9

What is the process of flooding?

Answer 9

• The patient is immediately exposed to their phobic stimulus
• This leads to extinction of the fear response
• This is because the patient is unable to carry out their avoidance behaviour
• They quickly learn that the phobic stimulus won’t actually hurt them and they ‘exhaust’
  their fear response.