specific phobias

• marked fear abt specified object
• object provokes immediate fear/anxiety
• avoids or endured w/ intense fear
• fear out of proportion
• lasting 6months+

common phobias

• animals or insects
• heights
• enclosed spaces
• thunder
• blood

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• each year close to 9% of all people in the U.S. have symptoms of specific phobia
• > 12% develop phobias at some point in their lives
• frequent comorbidity with other anxiety disorders

evidence tends to support the behavioral explanations:

UCS - snake bite -> UCR - fear

forest + UCS - snake bite -> UCR - fear

CS - forest -> CR - fear

• phobias develop through modeling
• observation and imitation
• phobias are maintained through avoidance
• phobias may develop into GAD when a person acquires a large number of them

systematic desensitization - slowly integrate the fear into the patient's life

• teach relaxation skills
• creates a fear hierarchy
• approach the fear more, fear less
  • vivo desensitization (live)
  • covert desensitization (imaginal)

decoupling - separates the fear from the conditioned stimulus

social anxiety disorder

• severe persistent, and irrational fear of social or performance situations
  • talking, performing, eating, or writing in public

social anxiety disorder, SAD

• general fear related to functioning poorly
• people rate themselves as performing less competently than they actually are
• 7.1% of people in the U.S. experience SAD in any given year
• often begin in childhood and persists

cognitive explanation

• irrational or unrealistic beliefs about self and environment
  • unrealistic high social standards
  • views of themselves as unattractive and socially unskilled
  • attentional bias toward social threat

automatic thoughts negative and automatic thoughts related to a specific context or event

• judgment or evaluation based

events>thoughts>emotions>behaviors

thinking errors

• all-or-nothing
  • black and white thinking or dichotomous thinking
• anticipating neg. outcomes
  • fortune telling
  • catastrophizing
• disqualifying the pos.
  • positive experiences or qualities do not matter

thinking errors

• emotional reasoning
• labeling
  • negative name-calling
• mental filter
  • undue attention to one negative detail instead of the entire context
• mind reading
  • you know what others are thinking
• overgeneralization
  • sweeping negative conclusions that go far beyond current context
• "should" and "must" statements
  • fixed precise idea of how you and others should behave

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• socratic questioning
  • ask questions like "are you sure this is will happen?" or "what is really the worst that can happen?"
• response to the automatic thoughts that arise in social situations

"stuttering during a convo does NOT make me stupid"