Unit 4 Essay

Behavior Modification Using Classical Conditioning Student’s Name Institution Course # and Name Professor’s Name Submission Date Over the years, behavior modification has sparked the interest of stakeholders such as parents, teachers, and clinicians who wish to change negative traits in an individual’s behavior to positive outcomes. Recent research argues that classical conditioning is an unconscious learning that promotes desirable behavior patterns (Bramwell & Mauzard, 2022). Classical conditioning can change when an automatic conditioned response is associated with a positive outcome. It treats physiological problems like phobia by associating a neutral stimulus with a positive outcome. Systemic desensitization eliminates the fear of phobias and replaces it with a conditional stimulus. This paper analyzes a patient's case of claustrophobia and utilizes systemic desensitization to overcome the fear. It analyzes how reciprocal inhibition promotes the treatment of anxiety. Moreover, the paper establishes the hierarchy of the client's phobia relating to the stimuli. Therefore, this paper aims to alleviate the patient's phobia using systemic sensitization and provide a positive outcome. Personal Information Jessica is a twenty-eight-year-old woman raised by her stepfather and mother in Atlanta, Georgia. The mother was a housewife, and the father was the breadwinner. Her stepfather was abusive and often found pleasure in embarrassing her. Being Indian, she was expected to respect and obey her elders without question. The stepfather was abusive and would punish her by locking her in the closet for hours. Jessica was raised in Hinduism but later on converted to Christianity. Growing up, mental health issues were never a priority; thus, she always struggled to speak about her phobia. Jessica is well-educated since she has a diploma in business administration. Jessica is close to her mother but has cut all ties with her stepfather. Jessica fears small spaces (claustrophobia) based on the DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria. The phobia leads to excessive fear since every time she is in an enclosed space, she experiences an unreasonable sense of fear. The panic attacks are triggered by the fear of exposure to small spaces since the phobic stimulus leads to the patient being apprehensive (Samra et al., 2024). Jessica indicates an anxiety response to the phobia stimulus since she feels that it puts her in danger; hence, she has anxiety attacks. Jessica goes out of her way to avoid small spaces since she feels triggered whenever she sees them. The phobia has been life-limiting since she could not go camping because she could not sleep in the camping tents. The DSM-5 criteria provide a more comprehensive strategy to diagnose the phobia and provide the optimal intervention for the patient. Relaxation Techniques and Application Reciprocal inhibition fosters a sense of relaxation for patients with phobias by providing a desired outcome to extinguish an old response to a stimulus. It promotes relearning for the patient since the stimuli are conditioned to elicit a desirable outcome, thus reducing anxiety. During this p...