Psychology- Phobias
- Created by: Daisymac
- Created on: 17-05-19 09:48
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- Phobias
- What?
- Phobias are anxiety disorders characterized by extreme anxiety and fear triggered by an object,place or situation
- 10% suffer at some point
- Dsm-5 or ICD-10
- Specific phobias- Phobia of an object
- Social phobias- Phobia of social situations eg public talking
- Agoraphobia- Fear of being outside/in a public place
- Behavioral explanations
- All behaviour learnt, what is learnt can be learnt, abnormal behaviour is learnt in the same way as normal behaviour
- CC- Explain the acquisition of phobias
- 2 process model
- OC- Explains the maintenance of phobias
- When avoidant behaviours are used we no longer feel anxiety
- This negatively reinforces avoidant behaviours as it has removed negative experience
- Increases likelihood of repeating the same avoidant behaviours
- Di Gallo found that 20% of people who had experienced traumatic car accidents developed a phobia of travelling in cars and these individual stayed at home .
- OC- Explains the maintenance of phobias
- Learning through association
- Associate something we don'[t have a fear of (NS) with something that triggers a fear response (UCS)
- Bounton 2007 points out evolutionary factors have an important role in phobias
- Seligman 1971 called this biological preparedness- Innate disposition to acquire certain fears
- Shows there is more to acquiring phobias than simple conditioning
- Seligman 1971 called this biological preparedness- Innate disposition to acquire certain fears
- 2 process model
- OC- Explains the maintenance of phobias
- When avoidant behaviours are used we no longer feel anxiety
- This negatively reinforces avoidant behaviours as it has removed negative experience
- Increases likelihood of repeating the same avoidant behaviours
- Di Gallo found that 20% of people who had experienced traumatic car accidents developed a phobia of travelling in cars and these individual stayed at home .
- Treating phobias
- SD
- Developed by Wolpe 1958
- Involves patients learning in stages to replace fear responses with feelings of calm
- form of counter conditioning
- gradually introduced to feared stimulus by working through the clients hierachy
- 1. create hierarchy of increasing fearful situations
- 2. Taught deep muscle relaxation techniques
- 3. Exposed to lowest level
- 4. Once comfortable, they move onto next stage
- 5. Length depends on the individual client.
- 4. Once comfortable, they move onto next stage
- 3. Exposed to lowest level
- 2. Taught deep muscle relaxation techniques
- Ethical issues- for therapy to be] effective, the participant cannot withdraw as it might end in psychological harm
- compare to other therapies it generally works faster and requires little effort on the patients part
- Could just eliminate or suppress symptoms and could result in substitute symptoms appearing
- Gildroy followed up 42 patients with fear of spiders and found that after 3 months and then 33 months the SD Group was less fearful
- Flooding
- A phobic patient is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered
- Small number of long sessions
- Immediate exposure to very frightening situation
- Flooding stops avoidance behaviour
- Not suitable for patients not in good physical health
- Ethical issues- for therapy to be effective, the participant cannot withdraw as it might end in psychological harm
- Supported by Wolpe, who used flooding to remove a girls phobia of being in cars and her phobia was eradicated
- SD
- Characteristics of phobias
- Cognitive
- Distorted perceptions
- Irrational beliefs
- Recognition of exaggerated anxiety
- Behavioral
- Endurance
- Panic
- Avoidance
- Emotional
- Unreasonable responses
- Persistent, excessive fear
- Cognitive
- What?
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