Psychopathology - Phobias

1. Define a phobia

An irrational fear of an object or situation

2. What are the three types of phobia and what do they mean?

-        Specific – phobia of an object, such as an animal or body part or a situation such as flying or having an injection

-        Social anxiety/social phobia – phobia of a social situation such as public speaking or using a public toilet

-        Agoraphobia – phobia of being outside or in a public place

3. What are the three behavioural characteristics of phobias?

-        Panic – crying/freezing/running away etc.

-        Avoidance – can interfere with work, education, social life etc.

-        Endurance – remaining in presence of phobic stimulus – phobia can be unavoidable

4. What are the two emotional characteristics of phobias?

-        Anxiety – anxiety is a long term response (going somewhere you expect to see the phobic stimulus) fear is the immediate short term response (actually seeing the phobic stimulus)

-        Excessive and unreasonable response – triggered by the presence or anticipation of the phobic stimulus – often wildly disproportionate to the danger posed

5. What are the three cognitive characteristics of phobias?

-        Selective attention – hard to look away, useful when in actual danger (adaptive), not useful when the phobia is irrational (maladaptive)

-        Irrational beliefs – e.g. ‘I must always sound intelligent’ – can increase pressure in phobic situations

-        Cognitive distortions – phobic’s perception of the stimulus is distorted

6. Who proposed the two-process model?

1.     Mowrer (1947)

7. Describe the two-process model

-        Acquisition by classical conditioning

o   Associating something we have no fear of with something that already triggers a fear response

o   Resulting fear is a conditioned response

o   Study – Watson & Rayner 1920

-        Maintenance by operant conditioning

o   Learning through consequence

o   Negative reinforcement - Negative reinforcement – avoiding the phobia stimulus, reduces the feelings of anxiety and therefore, that person is more likely to repeat the avoidance

8. What the three evaluation points for the two-process model?

-        Good explanatory power – explains why patients need to be exposed to the phobic stimulus

-        Alternative explanation for avoidance behaviour – avoidance may not be motivated by anxiety reduction but instead feelings of safety

-        Incomplete explanation of phobias – more to acquiring phobias than simple conditioning – evolutionary factors (biological preparedness – Seligman 1971)

1.      

9. What are the two methods for treating phobias?

-        Systematic desensitisation

-        Flooding

10. What is systematic desensitisation?

1.     Based on the fact that what has been learnt can be unlearnt (counterconditioning), training the patient to illicit a relaxation response instead of a fear response. You cant feel relaxed and afraid at the same time so one emotion prevents the other - reciprocal inhibition.

11. What are the three stages of systematic desensitisation?

-        Fear hierarchy – list of situations related to the phobic stimulus arranged from least to most frightening.

-        Relaxation – techniques such as breathing exercises, imagery techniques, meditation – can also be achieved using drugs such as Valium if the patient physically can’t relax (phobia is too severe/learning difficulties)

 Patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus starting at the bottom of their fear hierarchy and moving up when they are able to remain relaxed through each step

12. What the three evaluation points for systematic desensitisation?

-        Effective

-        Suitable for a wide range of patients and phobias

-        Relatively suffering free (compared to flooding)

13. What is flooding?

1.     Exposing the patient to the phobic stimulus immediately rather than gradually – intense exposure done over an extended period of time in a controlled manner. Patient is unable to avoid the phobic stimulus and due to exposure anxiety levels decrease

14. Why does extinction occur? (2 reasons)

-        fear is a time-limited response to a situation which eventually subsides

-        In some cases the patient may achieve relaxation simply because they are exhausted by their own fear response 

15. What the three evaluation points for flooding?

-        Cost-effective and time effective

-        Less effective for some types of phobia

-        Treatment is traumatic