phobias are one of the most interesting mental health conditions to talk about I think that might be because the range of objects people can photograph is so wide and if you don't have a phobia of say buttons it can be very difficult to imagine how a phobia buttons could have developed in someone who does have component phobia in this video I'm going to discuss the behaviorist approach to both explaining and treating phobias so of course if you remember your behaviorism Concepts you know I'm going to be talking about classical and operant conditioning these are fairly complex ideas and I will cover everything you need to know for the second folder unit here but if you want a video of a little bit more depth on the basics of behaviorism you may want to check out my video in the approaches unit first psych boost.com over 170 videos to help you with your qualification and patreon supporters can access bonus resources tutorial videos and the Discord Channel the behaviorist approach to explaining phobias a key concept behaviors share is behavior including phobias are learned ultimately from some interaction with the environment so experience now a really important term in this video is the two process model this idea comes from Maura and it suggests that phobias are initially acquired so they're first learned through classical conditioning which is alerting through Association while phobias are maintained so kept going through reinforcement so through Opera and conditioning learning through consequence let's consider each of these processes in turn acquisition so we gain or acquire phobias through classical conditioning learning by association a phobic object like a b starts as a neutral stimulus it causes a neutral response so no response however an unconditioned stimulus like the pain of being stung will produce an unconditioned fear response these unconditioned stimulus response links are automatic they don't need to be learned however when the neutral stimulus in this case the B is paired with the unconditioned stimulus of being stung an association is formed and the B becomes a conditioned stimulus now producing the condition response of fear on its own phobias can be generalized so a conditioned fear response is also experienced in the presence of stimuli that are similar to The conditioned stimulus so a fear of bees could be generalized to other small flying insects the second part of the two process model suggests that phobias are maintained through operant conditioning which is a form of learning that occurs through learning the consequences of our actions a person with a phobia is aware of their phobia and may try to avoid the phobic object and the situations that put them in contact with it this avoidance leads to reduction in anxiety which is a pleasant sensation this acts as a reinforcement and strengthens the phobia making it more likely that the person will avoid the phobic object in the future let's think about the two process model of phobias acquisition and maintenance with a scenario Laura has a phobia of bees when she was young she used to play with bees and she was not afraid of them however one day when she was playing with the bees she accidentally put her hand over one of them and was stung this sting produced a fear response and Laura panicked and started hitting the bees which caused it to be stung a few more times this caused her to associate the pain of being stung with the bees and now whenever she sees a bee she has a fear response even though she's not been stung since this is an example of how phobias can be learned through classical conditioning through the process of Association in terms of Maintenance a later scenario in Laura's life might be that she's been invited to a summer picnic with her friends she's looking forward to spending time with them but when she gets to the park she sees several bees and becomes anxious she calls her friends and tells them that there's been an emergency at home and she can't make it to the picnic she walks away from the park and heads home feeling sad that she can't spend time with her friends however her anxiety decreases because she knows she doesn't have to be near the bees this reinforces her phobia and makes it more likely she'll avoid the bees in the future this situation may suggest that Laura's phobia is impacting her ability to engage with her social life and is affecting her day-to-day life she's failing to function you may want to check you understand the concept of the two process model by inventing a similar scenario but using a different phobic object evaluating the Behavior's approach to explaining phobias the classic research by Watson arena in 1920 is the story of little Albert in this research Watson demonstrated when introduced to a rap for the first time a young child showed no phobic response however Watson paired the display of the wrap with hitting a large metal pole behind the child's head creating a loud noise this resulted in a phobic response whenever the rat was presented alone demonstrating phobias can be acquired through Association Lil Albert also developed a fear response to other similar objects such as small dogs and furry blankets demonstrating generalization there is critical research dinardo showed that while conditioning events like dog bites were common in participants with dog phobias at 56 of participants they were at least as common in participants with no dog phobia at 66 percent of participants also when Mendes and Clark City children of a phobia of water they found only two percent could recall a negative experience of water and 56 of parents told researchers the phobia had been present from the child's first encounter with water these findings suggest the behaviorist approach is not a full explanation for all phobias humans also don't commonly display phobic responses to objects that cause the most pain in day-to-day life for example when cooking many people accidentally cut themselves of a knife however phobias of knives are quite rare whereas very few people are bitten by a snake or a spider while phobias of snakes and spiders are quite common an evolutionary explanation might be more valid for Fears of drowning Heights snakes and spiders these are the dangers that many of our evolutionary ancestors faced and those are the natural instinctual fear would have been more likely to survive and reproduce meaning phobias are hereditary one positive valuation is what we're about to explore next in this video the the Behavior's theories of phobias have been used to develop effective counter conditioning therapies such as flooding and systematic desensitization these therapies are highly effective treatments for phobias which suggests that the underlying behaviors theories they are based on are valid explanations for the development and maintenance of phobias the behaviorist approach to treating phobias flooding and systematic desensitization both flooding and systematic desensitization are based on the behaviorist principle that phobias are learned associations and both of the therapies attempt to replace the fear association with the phobic object with one of relaxation or calmness both use an idea called reciprocal inhibition fear and relaxation are too antagonistic meaning opposite emotions and you can't feel too opposite emotions at the same time if the therapist can help the client hold the phobic object without feeling any fear then they've been successfully counter-conditioned and no longer have the phobia the main difference between these two therapies is how they help the client reach the point of feeling no fear in the presence of the phobic object let's start with the stepped approach called systematic desensitization the therapist will Begin by teaching the client relaxation techniques like breathing exercises then the client will be asked to create an anxiety hierarchy this is a list of feared situations with the phobic object starting with those at the least feared to the most feared the client will then be exposed to each different level of the anxiety hierarchy starting with the least anxiety-reducing level perhaps seeing a photograph of the phobic object to the highest however each stage the client will be helped to relax using relaxation techniques learn to start the therapy only when a client is fully relaxed when the therapist move to the next stage the final stage will likely be holding the phobic object and when this can be done without fear and with relaxation the association is extinct and a new association with relaxation is formed flooding attempts to counter condition a phobia by immediate and full exposure to the maximum level of a phobic stimulus this would be the top level of the previous anxiety hierarchy now this immediate exposure is expected to cause an extreme Panic response in the client the client is expected to cry the client is expected to scream and the therapist's job is to stop the client from escaping the situation you might be surprised by this approach but it takes energy to produce a fear response and the phobic object is often not dangerous so the client can be left in this situation until they run out of energy to cry and scream at the point of exhaustion the client is no longer sharing a fear response and is being counter-conditioned now it's really important that the client can't escape and the therapist doesn't end the therapy early if that happens then anxiety will decrease due to the removal of the stimulus and the phobia will have been reinforced you might want to return to the scenario of Laura and the bees how may a therapist attempt to treat Laura using both flooding and systematic desensitization evaluating the behaviorist approach to treating phobias we can evaluate systematic desensitization and flooding by comparing each treatment option it might not surprise you to learn systematic desensitization is often the client's preferred treatment this is because the client is in control of their progress not the therapist they can stop themselves going to the next level by just saying they're not fully relaxed at that stage and of course flooding isn't appropriate for older people people who have heart conditions or children also if flooding fails and the client is released before the anxiety is subsided then the phobia will be reinforced however flooding is likely to be a quicker process with systematic desensitization potentially taking more sessions to achieve the same result a problem with both systematic desensitization of flooding is they may seem to be effective when they're in the controlled environment of the clinician's room so when the phobia is being treated it could be that this effect isn't generalized to experiences in the real world perhaps someone can overcome their phobia of birds whether in a room with a tame bird but when outside of the therapist's office in the real world exposed to a large number of wild birds the phobia might return we might also argue that systematic desensitization of flooding are both better shooting phobias of objects than treating social phobias for example it's easier to build and slowly progress through an anxiety hierarchy about being exposed to buttons or have a full and traumatic experience to snakes in a controlled environment then replicate a party and interactions with strangers in the therapist office drugs are an alternative treatment for fabias as it's an anxiety disorder tranquilizers like benzodiazepines are used as well as antidepressants these can lower anxiety and reduce the phobic response and they're often a quicker and more cost effective treatment than systematic desensitization or flooding as these require multiple sessions of a trained therapist however due to the temporary nature of drugs and the side effects drugs are often not the preferred treatment of sufferers and are likely to be a temporary solution before therapy recent developments of virtual reality technology have allowed the principles of systematic desensitization to be adapted into virtual reality exposure therapy Garcia palacitos found 83 percent of participants treated with VR exposure to spiders showed clinically significant Improvement compared to zero percent in the control group I want to thank everyone over on patreon for supporting the channel because of you I've been able to teach part-time meaning I can make site boost on YouTube for everyone and a special thank you to cat posnick and Ahmad Romani for supporting at the developer level I do have extra resources that are exclusive to my patrons so if you decide to sign up you can grab those over my website and these include over a hundred exam question tutorial videos of course including questions on the Psychopathology unit I hope this was helpful and I will see you in the next psych Boost video