behavioural approach to treating phobias

What are the two behavioural approaches to treating OCD?

• Systematic desensitisation

• Flooding

steps of systematic desensitization

1. Anxiety hierarchy (list of situations arranged in order of least to most frightening)

2. Relaxation techniques (taught to client to replace fear with relaxation)

3. Exposure (clients start at bottom of hierarchy and must show they can stay relaxed in that situation before gradually moving up each step. Treatment lasts several sessions + is successful when client can stay relaxed in sitstuons high on hierarchy

What is flooding in exposure therapy?

• involves exposing you to your greatest fear for several hours with no chance of escaping + no interference from therapist

• when u have phobic response , ur nerv system is sending a false alarm to ur brain telling u that u are in danger, activating f/f response

• by being forced to face the fear ur body's f/f response eventually exhausts itself + calms down

• ur brain recognises nothing bad has happened and is often conditioned to not overreact in the future

• most clients only have one session , flooding can actual/imaginary exposure

What do both therapies use?

• The principles of classical conditioning

• A new association is learned where the phobic stimulus is associated w relaxation/no fear instead of anxiety/fear