Behavioral Analysis Quiz #5 Review

Three questions used to assess a client's anxiety level, tolerance to exposure, and their perceived feared outcome. These questions help guide the exposure process and provide insights into the client's thought patterns.

The process of repeatedly confronting feared situations or stimuli in order to reduce anxiety and change unhelpful beliefs. It is a key component of exposure-based therapies.

When the belief in the feared outcome is reduced to a level of 5-10%, indicating a significant decrease in anxiety and a shift in the client's perception.

The tendency to avoid situations that trigger anxiety, leading to a decrease in anxiety temporarily but ultimately reinforcing avoidance behavior and preventing corrective learning.

Unhelpful beliefs or thoughts that contribute to anxiety, often exaggerating the severity of a situation or perceiving danger where it doesn't exist.

Exposure therapy helps reduce obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms by changing how a person reacts to their fears.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves persistent thoughts that trigger rituals aimed at reducing anxiety.

A key element of exposure therapy, response prevention involves stopping compulsive rituals to break the cycle of anxiety.

Creating new, non-threatening associations in the mind to counter existing fear-based thoughts.

Emotional processing theory (EPT) explains how exposure therapy works by modifying fear structures through new experiences.

When individuals avoid situations or stimuli they fear, preventing them from learning that their fears are often unfounded.

A carefully crafted list of feared situations or stimuli, ranked in order of increasing difficulty based on the level of anxiety they trigger.

A scale used to measure the intensity of anxiety or distress on a range of 0-100, with 0 being no anxiety and 100 being the highest level of anxiety imaginable.

Exposure techniques involving directly confronting feared situations in real-life settings.

Exposure techniques involving vividly imagining feared scenarios.

Exposure techniques involving deliberately inducing physical sensations that trigger anxiety, such as rapid breathing or heart palpitations.

The therapist's role is to guide and support the client through exposure therapy, providing instruction, encouragement, and processing experiences without excessive reassurance or emotional responses.

Obsessive-Compulsive Related Disorders (OCRD) are a group of disorders that share similarities with OCD, such as intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors.

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a type of behavioral therapy used to treat OCD and other anxiety disorders, where the individual is exposed to their fears and prevented from engaging in compulsive rituals.

ERP involves exposing the individual to triggers (e.g., dirt, germs) and then preventing them from engaging in compulsive rituals (e.g., hand washing). This helps break the cycle of obsession and compulsion.

Mowrer's two-factor theory suggests that anxiety disorders are learned through classical conditioning (associating a neutral stimulus with fear) and maintained through operant conditioning (avoidance behavior is reinforced by reducing anxiety).

Obsessive thoughts (e.g., contamination) are paired with anxiety, while compulsive behaviors (e.g., hand washing) are associated with anxiety reduction. This creates a negative reinforcement cycle, reinforcing the behavior despite not eliminating the anxiety.

The goal of ERP is to break the association between obsessive thoughts and anxiety, and between rituals and anxiety reduction. This is achieved by gradually exposing the individual to anxiety-provoking situations without allowing them to perform rituals, leading to extinction of the fear response.

ERP promotes extinction of the fear response by repeated exposure to feared stimuli while resisting avoidance behaviors. This helps the individual learn that the feared situation is not dangerous, and the avoidance behavior is unnecessary.

ERP should only be used under the guidance of a qualified mental health professional. It can be a challenging process but is often very effective in reducing OCD symptoms.

A therapy technique involving repeated exposure to anxiety-provoking situations without engaging in rituals or avoidance behaviors, helping individuals learn that their fears are unfounded.

A mental health condition where individuals experience intense anxiety and distress about a perceived flaw in their appearance.

The tendency to experience overwhelming urges to pull out hair, leading to significant distress and potentially noticeable hair loss.

A mental health condition characterized by repetitive and compulsive skin picking, resulting in skin lesions and significant distress.

A hierarchy of fears is not necessary for effective exposure therapy. The randomness of exposure actually enhances extinction.

The effectiveness of exposure therapy for OCD lies in the fact that the obsessions and fears are not inherently dangerous, and the rituals are unnecessary. By experiencing the natural decline in anxiety without performing rituals, individuals learn to control their fears.

TTM and skin picking, like OCD, are characterized by repetitive behaviors, but they are driven by different underlying processes. TTM/skin picking is not fueled by obsessions or fears, the behaviors are often performed outside of conscious awareness, and they provide a sense of satisfaction rather than discomfort.

Exposure therapy, which involves confronting feared situations or objects, is effective for OCD because it helps individuals overcome fear-driven avoidance. However, it is not an effective treatment for TTM and skin picking because these behaviors are not motivated by fear, but by a desire for sensory gratification.

Hoarding is a complex behavior that involves persistent difficulty discarding possessions, resulting in extreme clutter. While it might share some similarities with OCD, it's distinct because it is not primarily driven by fear or obsessions, and its emotional significance makes exposure therapy ineffective.

Motivational interviewing is more appropriate for addressing hoarding disorder than exposure therapy because it helps individuals recognize their behavior, explore their motivations, and develop strategies for change. It takes into account the emotional significance of objects and the cognitive deficits that may be present.

The proposed OCRD diagnostic category in the DSM-5 is not suitable for many disorders, including TTM/skin picking and hoarding, as it fails to address the unique characteristics, motivations, and treatment approaches for these conditions.