Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Systematic Desensitisation
- Behaviourist therapies in general draw on the principle
of conditioning in order to help people unlearn certain
behaviours.
- SD is based mainly on classical conditioning and the idea of stimulus-response relationships.
- SD was developed by Wolpe in the 1950's and is used to treat phobias.
- It uses principles of operant conditioning and generalisations,
everyone with different phobias work through the same format.
- Steps
- The patient is taught how to full relax
themselves and their body in a
normal setting.
- Patient imagines scenarios associated with
their phobia, each one of increasing severity.
- Once the patient can completely relax in one
scenario, they move onto the next.
- The patient will eventually master their phobia by confronting it.
- Types
- In Vivo
- Patient has to relax
while directly
experiencing stimuli.
- In Virto
- Patient visualises
stimuli.
- Evaluation
- Effectiveness
- Ethics
- Anxiety Controlled
- SD is considered to be more ethical than other
therapies such as flooding.
- This is because the patient is in control of the pace.
- Consent
- Patients are in touch with reality so can give informed consent.
They are attending under their own free will and can withdraw at
any time.
- Flooding puts patients
directly in harms way.
- Research Support
- Capafons et al (1998)
studied patients who had
a fear of flying, after
treatment they showed
significantly less fear.
- Not Appropriate for All Phobias
- The concept of biological preparedness by Bregman (1934)
- May not be suitable for ancient fears, fears of things that were once dangerous to our ancestors.
- Symptom Substitution
- SD only treats the symptoms of a phobia, does not attempt to understand the cause.
- Seligman - we are born with natural fears.