Behaviourism treatment for phobias

What is counter conditioning?

Maladaptive (mis-learned) behaviour can be corrected by replacing it with a new and appropriate conditioned (learned) behaviour.

What is one of the reasons that Phobias may persist?

individuals with a phobia will avoid their phobic stimulus and therefore there is never an opportunity to learn that their fear is irrational, and that their phobic stimulus is not actually harmful.

The behavioural approach to treating phobias removes this avoidance.

What is Systematic desensitisation (SD?

Can CURE phobias.

S.D. is where a patient is trained to substitute a relaxation response for the fear response in the gradual presence of the phobic stimulus.

Systematic desensitisation (SD): Reciprocal Inhibition?

suggests that it’s impossible to hold two opposite emotions.

Relaxation is incompatible with fear.

Systematic desensitisation (SD): What are the three steps?

1. Training the patient to relax (on demand), e.g. breathing techniques/mindfulness

2. Establishing a anxiety hierarchy of the feared stimulus (identify steps; from a picture, to interaction with the stimulus)

3. Counter Conditioning a relaxation response (instead of a fear response) to the feared stimulus at each step of the hierarchy

Evaluation of SD: The case study of Little Peter (Jones, 1924)

– Jones et al (1924) cured Peter of his rabbit phobia through techniques now recognised as Systematic Desensitisation. By using relaxation techniques Peter was able to hold a rabbit (calmly) at the end of a series of steps of increasingly distressing interactions with rabbits.

this gives validity to the success of systematic desensitisation.

Evaluation of SD: External validity

Some patients may struggle to deal with the phobia outside of the therapy sessions

• They may not be able to apply what they have learned to real, everyday situations, particularly without guidance from the therapist

  • This reduces the external validity of the theory behind the treatment

Flooding: What is flooding?

Patient taught to relax muscles totally.

One long immediate exposure to the (worst case of the) feared stimulus.

Flooding: How does flooding work?

This prevents avoidance of the feared stimulus - so after the initial f/f response has exhausted itself, the phobia will run into extinction.

The phobia will be cured.

Flooding: Ethical guidelines?

Ethical safeguards are important. The patient will need to consent to this treatment.

Also medical (esp heart) checks will be administered before the therapy can begin.

AO3 (Flooding): in comparison to SD

Quicker at curing phobias than Systematic desensitisation.

AO3 (Flooding): Ethics

A great deal of anxiety (Psychological harm) can be

caused to patients.

AO3 (Flooding): I/D

These behaviourist treatments are reductionist, seeing a change in behaviour as purely a result of conditioning is reducing the explanation to simple terms.

Phobia cases could be more complex than this and to involve biological (heritability), psychodynamic (trauma) or cognitive (irrational beliefs) elements too.

An interaction with a more holist view (involving more of these explanations in the treatment of phobias) may lead to a more valid treatment of phobias.