Phobias Part 2 – treatments

This week’s post is the second in a 2 part series about phobias, and will focus on different types of treatment, and what works. If you haven’t already, read part 1 (see here) for more information on types of phobias and possible causes.

If you’r a regular reading of my blog, you may remember that a while back I did a post on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and how that can be used to treat people with phobias. The main principle is to reduce the anxiety felt by encountering the phobia stimulus, be it crowds, flying, or needles. By teaching the patient breathing exercises to help them relax and working to change the thoughts (cognitions) about the phobic stimulus, therapists can help the patient to work towards overcoming their fear. The behavioural part of this technique is gradual exposure to the thing the patient is afraid of, whilst the patient works hard to control their breathing and stay calm. This exposure can help towards changing thoughts which contribute to the phobia such as ‘if I’m in a room with a dog it will bite me’, which in turn reduces fear.

For example, take a look at the diagram below which shows how phobias remain if the fears aren’t challenged. If therapy targets the thoughts, and tests the fear, then it is likely the phobia will be treated successfully.

aaaa

Another form of exposure therapy which has been used to treat phobias is known as ‘flooding’. Unlike in CBT, where the individual is gradually exposed to their fear, in this technique they are put straight in the worst situation they could imagine. This uses more behavioural techniques – as the body cannot sustain a physiological stress response for a long period of time, people begin to notice they feel calmer, even though they are in the presence of their fear. An example would be putting someone who was scared of birds in a room full of them! This also enables the individual to confront their worst fear and learn that nothing bad happens when they are in that situation.

Thanks for reading – there won’t be a post next week as I’ve got 2 interviews but I’ll be back the week after!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.