Phobias are highly susceptible to treatments based on conditioning. Most other disorders are not as susceptible to treatment. Two basic types of treatment are known as systematic desensitization and flooding. Systematic desensitization is basically showing something to the person with the phobia that brings positive emotion while having that phobia that creates the fear in the background at a distance. Each time this occurs the item that creates the fear is moved closer and closer. This is called a gradual conditioning procedure which eventually eliminates the phobia. Systematic desensitization pairs relaxation with a fear. Flooding therapy is a treatment that has the phobia being exposed for a long amount of time which gives the greatest amount of time that the phobia needs to be eliminated.
Personally, I am extremely scared of mice. I would consider it to be a phobia of mine. The only rodent I can stand to look at without becoming overwhelmed with fear is the rat animation from Ratatouille. Above you mentioned that systematic desensitization is showing something that brings positive emotion while also having the fear present in the back of your mind. For me, I would consider Ratatouille to be something that brings positive emotion but the fear is still present in the back of my mind about mice. Im not sure how this would help extinguish my phobia but its an interesting thought to pursue.
ReplyDeletePhobias are very interesting because many different people have completely different phobias. I personally have a strong phobia of clowns. I hate being around clowns even when I go to a child's birthday party I can not be there. I would have to leave and go home and apologize to the child.
ReplyDelete