Behavioural approach: Phobias

Phobias: behavioural characteristics

1)Panic: In response to the phobic stimulus. Involve range of behaviours including crying, running, screaming, freezing or fainting

2)Avoidance: People with phobias make a conscious effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus, and this makes it hard to go about daily life

3)Endurance/Freeze response: Alternative to avoidance is endurance, in which the sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus and continues to experience high levels of anxiety.

Phobias: emotional characteristics

1)Anxiety: This can be long term and it prevents the sufferer from relaxing. Makes it difficult to experience any positive emotion as they experience feelings of worry

2)Fear: the immediate and extremely unpleasant response when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus. They experience feelings of terror

3)Emotional responses and unreasonable: in terms of relation to the stimulus go beyond what’s reasonable. It’s disproportionate to the threat posed

Phobias: cognitive characteristics

1)Decrease in concentration: Therefore they have the inability to complete tasks when the phobic stimulus is around

2)Irrational beliefs: A phobic may hold unfounded thoughts in relation to a phobic stimuli that doesn’t have any basis in real life

3)Selective attention: Increased awareness of the phobic stimulus

4)Distorted perceptions: Perception of the phobic stimulus may be inaccurate and unrealistic

introduction to phobias

• 3 types of phobias

Included in the DSM-5 as an anxiety disorder. They are defined as instances of irrational fears that produce an avoidance of the feared object or situation

DSM categorises phobias into 3 main types:

1)Specific phobias:

2)Social phobias

3)Agoraphobia

Explaining phobias

• 2 process model

Proposed by Mowrer (1960)

• the behavioural approach emphasises the role of learning in the acquisition of behaviour.

• He proposed the two-process model based on the behavioural approach to phobias. This states that phobias are acquired by classical conditioning and maintenance through operant conditioning

Explaining phobias

• Acquisition by classical conditioning

Classical conditioning is learning to associate something we initially had no fear of (NS) with something that already triggers a response of fear (UCS)

• an association is built until the response produced by the UCS is also produced by the now phobic stimulus (NS)

• Therefore, the acquisition of the phobia is complete

Explaining phobias

• maintenance by operant conditioning

Conditioned responses (the learnt fear) decline over time though extinction unless they’re maintained. They’re maintained through negative reinforcement (operant conditioning)

• To be maintained, the individual avoids the phobic situation and this acts as a desirable behaviour as it ends the unpleasant feeling of anxiety

• This is what reinforces avoidance behaviour, making it more likely that it will happen again. So the person continues to try and avoid the phobic stimulus, therefore, maintaining the phobia

Explaining phobias

• strengths

Explaining phobias

• weakness

Treating phobias

• what are the 2 treatments?

• flooding

• systematic desensitisation

Treating phobias

• systematic desensitisation

Behavioral therapy that uses classical conditioning to replace anxieties associated with phobic objects by use of of the incompatible response of relaxation. This approach works due to reciprocal inhibition

Why does it work?

• its impossible to experience 2 opposite emotions of fear and relaxation at the same time. This treatment uses classical conditioning to replace the anxiety associated to the phobic object with relaxation

• the learnt relaxation technique is used by clients and replaces anxiety the client would have experienced

• Client is exposed in stages to rising intensity to a phobic stimulus

3 processes within systematic desensitization:

1)Anxiety hierarchy: Therapist & patient construct it together. This is a list of situations related to the phobic object that provokes anxiety, arranged in order from least to most anxiety arousing

2)Relaxation: Therapist uses relaxation techniques and training to teach their client to relax as deeply as possible. Might involve things like breathing exercises and mental imagery techniques

3)Exposure: Finally, the patient is gradually moving up the hierarchy in a relaxed state. This takes place across several sessions, starting from the bottom of the hierarchy

• when the patient can stay relaxed when exposed to lower anxiety arousing version of the stimulus, they move up the hierarchy

• Treatment is done when you can stay relaxed when exposed to the highest anxiety arousing version of the phobic stimulus

Treating phobias

• flooding

Works due to preventing avoidance. It’s a direct and immediate exposure to the phobic stimulus for extended periods of time without the gradual build up of an anxiety hierarchy

Patients are prevented from avoidance of the stimulus and stay in its presence until their anxiety/fear has receded and the phobic response has been exhausted

Why does it work?

• Flooding stops the phobic response very quickly. This may be because the patient doesn’t have the option to avoid the stimulus and soon learns that it’s harmless. in terms of classical conditioning, this is called extinction.

• This is when the conditioned stimulus is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus. The result is that the conditioned stimulus no longer produces the conditioned response.

Treating phobias

• weakness

Treating phobias

• strengths