4.2 Phobias

What are the characteristics of phobias?

An irrational fear of an object, place or situation that causes a constant avoidance. All phobias are characterised by the excessive fear and anxiety caused by the object, place or situation.

DSM-5 recognised which categories of phobias?

Specific phobia: object or situation. E.g. A needle or spider, or flying.

Social phobia (Social anxiety): social situations. E.g.Public speaking.

Agoraphobia: Phobia of being outside.

What are the Behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Panic - around the phobic stimulus. Involves crying, screaming or running away. Children may freeze, clinging or have a tantrum.

Avoidance – individuals avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus, to reduce the chances of anxiety responses occurring.

Endurance - The sufferer chooses to remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus. E.g. a person with arachnophobia may choose to keep an eye on a spider rather than leaving the room.

What are the Emotional characteristics of phobias?

Persistent excessive fear and anxiety - This prevents the sufferer from relaxing and makes it difficult to experience positive emotion.

Fear from exposure to phobic stimulus - Phobias can produce an immediate fear response, even panic attacks.

Unreasonable response - emotional responses to phobic stimuli are unreasonable and wildly disproportionate reactions to the danger posed by the object or situation.

What are the Cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Selective attention to the phobic stimulus - not be able to look away from the phobic stimulus. not useful when the fear is irrational.

Irrational beliefs - Social phobias can involve beliefs like ‘if I blush people will think I’m weak’. This increases the pressure to perform well in social situations.

Cognitive distortions - The phobic’s perceptions of the phobic stimulus may be distorted. E.g. a coulrophobic may see clowns as scary and dangerous.

What is the Behavioural explanation of phobias?

It proposes that phobias are acquired through conditioning or learning?

What is The two-process model?

• Suggests that phobias are developed through CC, by associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus which leads to a fear response/

• Phobia is then maintained through OC as it is reinforced, e.g. by avoiding the phobic stimulus to reduce the fear response - negative reinforcement.

Explain Classical conditioning with the Little Albert (1920) experiement

• Tried to classically condition a phobic response in an infant. Paired a neutral stimulus of a white rat with an unconditioned stimulus of a loud bang.

• Every time Albert saw a white rat a loud bang was made this led to an unconditioned response fear.

• Eventually the white rat became a conditioned stimulus and led to a conditioned response of fear.

• This phobia was generalised to white fluffy things.

What is operant conditioning?

• a behaviour is strengthened, because an unpleasant consequence is removed.

Positive reinforcement strengthens a behaviour by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding.

Negative reinforcement is avoiding a negative consequence which strengthens a phobia.

What is SCOUT for Behavioural explanations of phobias?

S: Watson and Rayner showed that a phobia can be conditioned. However this was only conducted on one child so is hard to generalise to the wider popu.

O: Biological preparedness would suggest that some fears have an evolutionary benefit, such as a fear of height and those may be acquired more easily.

Also some people may have an overactive nervous system which means they have higher levels of anxiety. If these individuals have a negative experience they may be more likely to develop a phobia (Diathesis-stress model).

U: Behavioural explanation may have been used to develop treatment such a systematic desensitisation which is effective in treating specific phobias (Wechsler)

What is systematic desensitisation?

• uses counterconditioning and replaces a maladaptive response (fear) with a healthier response (relaxation).

What are the three steps in systematic desensitisation?

1. The therapist and patient create a hierarchy from most to least fearful stimuli. For example thinking about a spider would be at the bottom of the hierarchy whereas touching a spider would be at the top.

2. Relaxation techniques are taught to the patient to enable them to feel relaxed in the presence of the phobic stimulus. Visualisation can help with this.

3. Exposure - The patient is then gradually exposed to each stimuli whilst in a relaxed state on the hierarchy a step at a time and practices relaxation until their anxiety reduces. This takes place over several sessions. The treatment is completed when the patient feels relaxed when exposed to the situation at the top of the hierarchy

What is Flooding?

Flooding is involves one session 2-3 hours long of the patient being exposed to the phobic stimulus,

This can be conducted in vivo (actual exposure) or virtual reality can be used.

How does Flooding work?

The patient a is unable to avoid (negatively reinforce) their phobia and through continuous exposure, anxiety levels decrease as they learn their phobic stimulus is harmless.

This process is called extinction- a learned response is extinguished when the conditioned stimulus (a dog) is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus (being bitten).