Systematic Desensitization: Similarities Between Awakening And Anxiety

Fear and Anxiety
A fear is composed of both operant and respondent behavior; typically a person becomes afraid of a particular stimulus or stimulus situation. When the stimulus is present, the person experiences unpleasant bodily responses and (autonomic nervous system arousal- respondent behavior) and engages in avoidance or escape behavior- operant behavior.

A phobia is when the level of anxiety or escape behavior is severe enough to disrupt the person’s life. fears/phobias result of classical conditioning (association)- ‘dog’ =dog bite = fear of all dogs operant conditioning ( fear responses are reinforced by other’s behavior or escape behavior) - scared of school = don’t have to go to school modeling (most common) - mum is
phobias).

Disadvantages
One weakness of systematic desensitization is that it relies on the client’s ability to be able to imagine the fearful situation. Some people cannot create a vivid image and thus Systematic desensitization is not effective.
Systematic desensitization is a slow process. Although, research suggests that the longer the technique takes the more effective it is
Systematic desensitization is not effective in treating serious mental disorders like depression and schizophrenia.
However, it only treats the symptoms of the disorder, not the underlying cause

In vivo desensitization
The client gradually makes direct contact with the stimulus
Next the client and therapist make a hierarchy of situations involving the fear inducing stimulus
With in vivo desensitization, the client does not imagine the scenario, they learn to actually experience the scenario whilst maintaining the relaxed responses.
Once the hierarchy of scenarios is established, the client experiences each step of the hierarchy, whilst remaining relaxed
It is important for the client to advance through each step without an increase in
approach behavior and an absence of escape behavior) are reinforced
There is no problem of generalization of the new behavior to real life contexts
The main advantage of systematic desensitization is that it is often easier and more convenient to conduct. e.g. if the feared stimulus is flying it would not be possible to conduct treatment via in vivo desensitization

Disadvantages
However, it is a more difficult, time consuming and costly procedure than systematic desensitization to conduct
However, whenever possible in vivo procedures are preferred
The one major disadvantage is that the results may not fully generalize to the actual real life encounter
If the results do not appear to have generalized in a trial in vivo situation, then further in vivo desensitization may be a necessary part of the treatment process

Flooding
Flooding is a procedure in which the person is exposed to the feared stimulus at full intensity for prolonged periods of time
Initially the person experiences heightened anxiety in the presence of the stimulus, but over time, with repeated and prolonged exposure, the level of fear/anxiety decreases due to extinction processes.
Over time the CS no longer produces the