Psychological Explanations of Phobic Disorders

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Evaluate two psychological treatments for phobic disorders (16 marks). One of the psychological treatments for phobic disorders is behavioural therapy. Behavioural therapies aim to replace maladaptive behaviours with adaptive ones by using conditioning techniques. Systematic desensitisation (SD) is the main behaviourist treatment for phobias. It was developed by Wolpe (1958), SD is based on classical conditioning, with patients learning in stages to associate fear responses with feelings of calm, rather than previous associations between phobic objects, situations or fear. The two opposing emotions of anxiety and relaxation are perceived as incapable of coexisting simultaneously. SD uses a progressive, step by step approach to feared objects or situations and takes about a month to advance through the entire desensitisation hierarchy. The hierarchy is constructed before treatment commences, going from least to most feared types of contact with phobic objects or situations and patients are taught relaxation strategies for each stage of contact. Contact is normally achieved by imagining scenarios (covert desensitisation), but sometimes involves actual contact (in vivo desensitisation). Snake phobics may begin SD treatment by looking at a picture of snakes in a sealed tank, and progressively work through to actually holding one. There has been a lot of research into behavioural therapies. Jones (1924) used SD to eradicate ‘Little Peters’s’ phobia of white fluffy animals and objects such as rabbits and cotton wool. The rabbit was presented to the patient at closer distances each time his anxiety levels subsided to permit movement to the next stage, and Peter was rewarded with food to develop a positive association towards the rabbit. Eventually he developed affection for the rabbit, with generalised onto similar animals and objects. Another study was done by
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