| What are the 2 aims of behavioural treatment? | 1. Reduce phobic anxiety through the principle of classical conditioning, whereby a new resposne to the stimulus is paired with relaxation instead of anxiety - countercounditioning
2. Reduce phobic anxiety through the principle of operant conditioning whereby there is no option for avoidance behaviour |
| What did Wolpe say about systematic desensitisation? | Ther 2 competing emotions cannot occur at the same time, so if a fear is replaced with relaxation, the fear cannot continue. Allows the person to relax in the presense of the phobic stimulus. |
| What is reciprocal inhibition? | The person feels afraid and relaxed at the same time, so one emotion prevents the other. |
| What are the three steps for systematic desensitisation? | Anxiety hierarchy, relaxation techniques, exposure |
| What is anxiety hierarchy? | The construction by the patient and the therapist. This is a stepped approach to getting the person to face the object or situation of their phobia from least to most frightening. |
| What is relaxation techniques? | The patient is trained so that they can relax quickly and as deeply as possible, breathing exercies and thinking of peaceful places. |
| What is exposure? | Patient is exposed through imagination (in virto) or in experience (in vivo) to the phobia while practicing relaxation techniques. When this has been achieved, the pateint continues the process by moving up their hierarhcy |
| What is flooding? | Exposing phobic patients to their fears but without a gradual build-up in an anxiety hierarhcy. Immediate exposure to a very frightening situation, repeatedly. Their sense are flooded with thoughts, experiences and images of their phobias. |
| How does flooding work? | It stops phobic responses quickly because without the option of avoidance, the patient quickly learns that the phobic stimulus is harmless. |
| How does flooding work in terms of classical conditioning? | Its called extinction, a learned response is extinguished when the conditioned stimulus is encountered without the unconctioned stimulus. Means that the conditioned stimulus can no longer produce the conditioned response. |
| Why might patients achieve relxation in flooding? | Simply because they become exhausted by their fear response due to the immediate exposure |
| What is the flooding case study by Wolpe? | 1960 - treated a teenager who had a fear of cars by forcing her into a car and then was driven around for 4 hours. She was hysterical at some points but it gradually subsided and relaxed, and by the end, her fear was gone. |
| What is the ethical problem of flooding ? | Though they consent to flooding, the idea of the treatment is that the person has to face their phobia and therefore it questions the idea of the right to withdraw. |
| A strength of systematic desensitisation? | -Gilroy examined 42 patients with arachnophobia, each patient in experiment group was treated using 3 x 45 mintue SD sessions. Control group only have relaxation technique training.
-3 months and 33 days later, the SD group was less fearful than control group
-A longitudinal study, results collected over long period time. Means that SD provides a long term solution to specific phobias. |
| A strength of systematic desensitisation? | -Used to help ppl with learning difficulties
-Some ppts require help with phobias may also have learning difficulties hoever the main alternatives to SD is not always suitable. Significant bc these ppts may feel distressed by the traumatic experience of flooding
-Alternative cognitive therapies require complex, rational thought which could be a struggle for people with learning difficulties. Means it has a high generlisability bc it can help a wide range of people, unlike other techniques
-Means that SD is often the most appropriate and accessible treatment for ppl with learning disabilities |
| A weakness of systematic desensitisation? | -Not effective for all treatmeant of phobias
-Ohman suggests that SD might not be effective in treating phobias that have an underlying evolutionary survivial component.
-Like people who have fear of heights or the dark, might not have been a phobia established through person experience (classical conditioning), making it hard to counter.
-This highliths the limitation of SD, ineffective in treating phobias which might have an innate bias. |
| A strength of flooding? | -Cost-effective
-Ourgin: reserach suggests that flooding is equally effective to other treatments, ,like SD and cognition therapy, but take less time for the posistive resutls
-Flooding can be effective in as little as one session, compared to SD which might take 10 sessions, with incurrent cost, to achieve the same results
-Can treat phobia more quickly with flooding, and more cost-effective for health care providers who do not have to fund longer options |
| A weakness of flooding? | -Symptom substituion
-Persons, reported case of a women with a phobia of death who was treated with flooding, her fear devlined but her fear of being criticised got worse.
-Symptom substitution means that one phobia may successfully be removed by counter-conditioned, but it gets replaced by another.
-Means that flooding might only treat the symptoms and not the true underlying case, if the anxiety reapperars in a new form |
| A weakness of flooding? | -Traumatic experience due to the unpleasent nature
-Wolpe had a pateint becoming so intesntly anxious after that she required hospitalisation
-Though its not unethical, since there is infomred consent from the pateint, many do not complete the treatment bc of the experience ebing too unpleasent to confromt.
-High attrition (drop-out) rate for flooding, compared to SD, means that therapists shoudl avoid recommending it since time and money will be wasted for ppts that don't engage or complete their full session. |
