Specific phobias and contributing factors

Biopsychosocial approach

A holistic, interdisciplinary framework for understanding the human experience in terms of the influence of biological, psychological and social factors

Biological factors

Internal, genetic and/or physiologically based factors

GABA - leading onto GABA dysfunction

* GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) = primary inhibitory neurotransmitter
* Regules postsynaptic activation in neural pathways, preventing over excitation and uncontrolled firing
* Important in regulating FFFR and anxiety as GABA acts as a ‘brake’ to slow/halt the excitatory neural impulse responsible for these reactions

GABA dysfunction

Insufficient neural transmission or reception of GABA in the body 

* Failure to produce, release or receive GABA (low levels of GABA in brain)

Contributes to development of phobia – low GABA can activate FFFR/anxiety more easily than someone with adequate GABA levels (stress response is more easily triggered by certain stimuli)

* Recurrent stress responses to specific stimuli can lead to development of phobia

Long-term potentiation

The long-lasting and experience-dependent strengthening of synaptic connections that are regularly coactivated

* Contributes to development of phobias by strengthening association between neural signals involved in perceiving a stimulus and neural signals involved in activating fear response
* Repeated coactivation – more readily trigger the activation of fear response

LTP example

__**Phobia of spiders example**__

● When a person fears a snake, 2 neural signals = coactivated:

- Neural signals involved in perceiving the snake,

\- Neural signals responsible for activating stress response.

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* Repeated activation of both neural signals together can lead to the development of a phobia:

\- Stress response is associated with and activated at the same time as the perception of a certain phobic stimulus.

- The more this occurs, the stronger the association becomes, and the stronger the phobia becomes.

Psychological factors

Internal factors relating to an individual’s mental process including their cognition, affect, thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes

Precipitating/perpetuating factors

* **Precipitating** = factors that increase the susceptibility to and contribute to the occurrence of developing a specific phobia
* **Perpetuating** = factors that inhibit a person’s ability to recover from a specific phobia (e.g. poor social group)

Classical conditioning

Phobias can be learned

* Specific phobias can be precipitated by classical conditioning
* The ‘event’ contributing to a specific phobia = the learning through CC

The neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned phobic stimuli (psychologists have found that if the NS is **traumatic enough**, **doesn’t need repeated association** for learned phobia).

Operant conditioning

Operant conditioning perpetuates phobias by preventing individuals to overcome specific phobias

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Focus on the consequence:

* Phobics – generally avoid contact with their phobic stimulus at all costs
* Avoiding stimuli – negatively reinforced through not having to deal with their fear response



Over time, this reinforcement strengthens/maintains the phobic response = avoidance behaviours more likely to be repeated and preventing recovery through this cycle.

Cognitive bias

A predisposition to think about and process info in a certain way

* Memory bias
* Catastrophic thinking

Cognitive bias - Memory Bias

A type of cognitive bias caused by inaccurate or exaggerated memory

Cognitive bias - Catastrophic thinking

A type of cognitive bias in which a stimulus or event is predicted to be far worse than it actually is (e.g. worst case scenario)

Social factors

External factors relating to an individual’s interactions with others and their external environment, including their relationships and community involvement

Specific environmental triggers

Stimuli or experiences in a person’s environment that evoke an extreme stress response, leading to the development of a phobia

Includes:

* __**Direct confrontation**__ with a traumatic stimulus/event (e.g. being bitten by a snake)
* **Observing another person** have direct confrontation with a traumatic stimulus/event (e.g. watching someone be bitten by a snake) – relate to ARRMR
* **Indirectly learning** about a potentially dangerous/traumatic stimulus or event (e.g. reading about the danger of snakes)

Stigma

Feeling of shame/disgrace experienced by an individual for a characteristic that differentiates them from others – perpetuating factor

* Feels as though their phobia is too embarrassing/insignificant to seek help
* Feel they are unusual/isolated from society for seeking help
* As phobias are based on at least somewhat irrational fears, seeking help can be very difficult