Phobics usually manage their fears by avoiding the objects that make them fearful. However, many psychologists maintain that avoidance merely magnifies the phobia. The task is therefore to expose the person to the feared object, to condition them to respond to the object in an appropriately non-fearful manner. In this manner, a person is forced to deal with his or her phobia.
The task of re-conditioning a response relies on gradually increasing exposure (McCallister et al. 1986). A person with a strong phobia to snakes, for example, can be shown simple line drawings of snakes. Over time, these drawings can then give way to more realistic photos, and even video presentations of crawling serpents. The key is to habituate the person to the presence of the stimulus, in a safe and non-threatening environment. Through habituation, a person could then start to develop a different conditioned response to the pictures of snakes.
Psychologists believe that phobics can become habituated to the object of their fear, just as one becomes habituated to background noises. When progress is made, a person can then be exposed to real snakes. While a healthy fear of poisonous snakes can still be justified, a person can be conditioned to respond without fear or phobia to non-poisonous ones.
Psychologists such as Ost (1989) have found exposure and habituation a very effective technique in helping people manage their phobia. Studies also found that some 80 to 90% of patients who undergo exposure and habituation learn to manage their phobia in the first session. Furthermore, very few patients experience a relapse of their phobic symptoms. Also, contrary to previous concerns with exposure therapy, former phobics who are treated through exposure do not find substitutes for the objects that they formerly feared.
There are many situations that could be difficult to re-create in the psychologist's office, such as agoraphobia. For these, technology and virtual-reality computer simulations provide an important tool for exposure. While not everyone responds to virtual reality, many phobics responded well to computer-simulated exposures (Rothbaum 1995). The point is to "flood" a person with the stimulus that elicits the conditioned response of fear, so a person would be habituated to the point of no longer noticing the stimulus.
Unfortunately, there are times when exposure and habituation are do not work as hoped.
There are other therapies, based on classical conditioning, that are designed to alter one's conditioned response to a feared stimulus. This technique is known as "counter-conditioning," and the objective is to condition a person to have a different response to the phobia-inducing stimulus.
Relaxation is often used as a counter-response. Since relaxation is incompatible with fear, the conditioned response of relaxing "counters" the conditioned phobic response (Weidemann and Kehoe 2003).
In cases where a subject could not even tolerate being...
classical conditioning, including a classical conditioning scenario. Classical conditioning is a learning theory of behavioral psychology that recognizes a specific response to a specific occurrence. Dr. IRA Pavlov discovered it in his famous experiments with a dog, which heard the sound of a bell and learned to associate it with a treat. Eventually, he simply associated the bell with the treat and began to salivate when he heard the
It is to be stressed upon that such reflexes may exist in some species but not in others. According an effective U.S., however, there are still several factors that have influence on conditioning a particular CS applying it. (Features of Classical Conditioning) The Classical Conditioning response is considered as most primitive and primary units of learning and assists the analysts in better comprehending and potentially treats some human pathology. The
classical conditioning by Pavlov and its current use in treating anxiety The paper focuses on the development of classical conditioning being used, as suggested by Pavlov, in treating anxiety through using fear-induced techniques. The paper talks about the past experiments that were done on animals and human, those who were suffering from anxiety and those who weren't, and highlights how anxiety is treated through fear induced conditioning. Combination of neutral stimulus
Phobias and Addictions Grade Course Families often pat their dogs and cats when they successfully catch a ball. Teachers and parents reward children with grades and gifts on their good performance with the motive that they continue to progress in a similar and a better way. At times, while travelling down the road some buildings or shops remind people about incidents or beloveds. These are some of the examples where environment is
Conditioning Theories: Phobias and Addiction Phobias and Addiction Phobias and Classical Conditioning Theory Classical conditioning theory proposes that an individual can acquire a phobic response to a conditioned stimulus (CS), if the CS is paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (UCS) of sufficient strength and/or nature to elicit a negative affective reaction (Armfield, 2006, p. 747). For example, if a golfer is hit by lightening on the 15th hole, the UCS is being
A dog hits a lever when it sees a light that signifies that it will be shocked. A person takes medicine before having certain foods that he or she knows will cause a stomachache (Sidman, 2006, p. 136). Above, the differences between operant and classical conditioning were noted. However, sometimes the distinction is blurred. In biofeedback, for instance, psychologists feed back information to the patients regarding their physiologic processes, which
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