Treatments for Phobias

Behaviourist treatments work on the assumption that if a phobia can be learned, it can be unlearned using the same principals.

• Exposure: The patient must contront their fear. Exposure can be in vivo (real life exposure to the feared stimulus) or in vitro (imagination), or both.
• Response prevention: Refraining from engaging in typical avoidance or escape behaviours when faced with a feared situation.

Systematic Desensitisation

The treatment allows the patient to unlearn the fear response and substitute it with a more adaptive response such as relaxation. This is gradually done using counter conditioning, aiming to avoid overhwelming anxious people.

Systematic desensitisation involves four stages:

• Functional analysis - The therapist and patient discuss the phobia and identify triggers for the anxiety.
• Construction of the anxiety hierarchy - The therapist and patient work together to construct a hierarchy of fear, involving the conditioned stimulus that are ranked from least to most fearful.
• Training in relaxation techniques - The patient is given…