The Behaviourist Approach to Explaining Phobias

What are key assumptions of the Behaviourist Approach?

• All behaviour is learned from the environment

• Pyschology should be seen as a science so it must be studied in a scientific way.

• Behaviourism is primarily concerned with observable behaviour as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion

• Behaviour is the result of stimulus-response.

• All behaviour, no matter how complex, can be reduced to simple stimulus response features.

• Behaviour happens because of reactions to what we experience.

What are characteristics of phobias?

• They fall under the category of anxiety disorders.

• A phobia is an extreme fear (often irrational) of a specific objects or organisms, which trigger extreme anxiety in the phobic person.

What categories does DSM V have to classify phobias?

• Eg:

• Specific phobia

• Social phobia

• Agorophobia

What comes under specific phobia?

• Arachnophobia (fear of spiders)

• Trypanophobia (fear of injections)

• Claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces)

What is social phobia?

• Fear of social situations or interactions.

• Eg: being judged, embarassed or negatively evaluated by others.

What is agorophobia?

• Fear of public spaces or the outside world.

What are behavioural characteristics of phobias?

• It is the way in which the phobic person responds to the phobic stimulus. Eg:

• Panic tends to result in a state of high stress and anxiety

• ‘Freezing’ on the spot

• Crying, screaming or shrieking

• Running away

• Passing out or fainting

What are emotional characterisitics of phobias?

• It revolves around the primary feelings and emotions experienced in the presence of a phobic stimulus.

• A key emotion surrounding phobias is anxiety

What is a phobic response?

• A phobic response is an extreme emotional response that is usually out of proportion to the threat posed by the phobic stimulus.

• The person usually knows it’s disproportionate but still feels fear.

What is selective attention?

• The phobic person becoming fixated on the phobic stimulus and unable to draw their attention away from it.

• Eg: staring at someone’s shirt buttons due to the fear buttons will choke him.

What are cognitive characteristics of phobias?

• Phobias involve irrational thinking, cognitive distortions and selective attention.

• It is how the person thinks about the phobic stimulus.

• The ways in which the phobic person processes information about the phobic stimulus.

• Eg: If i touch cotton wool it might get into my bloodstream and cause a heart attack.

What are the stages of systematic desensitisation?

• Anxiety heirarchy

• Relaxation

• Exposure

What is anxiety heirarchy?

• The patient and therapist work together to construct an anxiety heirarchy, which is a list of situations that involve the phobic stimulus from least to most frightening

• Eg: for a fear of spider start with looking at pictures to holding one.

What is relaxation?

• Breathing exercises help to calm the patient physiologically by slowing down and controlling the breath.

• Visualisation involves the patient placing themselves, mentally in a relaxing calming environment. eg: a beach

• Drug therapy may also be used as a biological treatment.

What is exposure?

• Whilst in a relaxed state the patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus staring at stage 1 of the anxiety hierarchy.

• The patient moves up the heirarchy stage by stage, continually checking for signs of panic and slowing down if necessary.

• The aim of exposure is for the patient to move to the top of the heirarchy, whilst remaining relaxed and in control.