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Flooding - Coggle Diagram
Flooding
CODA Evaluation
Credibility
Flooding is based on classical conditioning, which is a well-established psychological theory supported by a huge amount of research (eg Pavlov's dogs, Baby Albert).
Ethics
It can be unethical to expose a patient to something they find distressing. In fact, it could backfire and make the patient even more frightened of that thing. This is particularly true of exposure therapy, which can backfire badly, but even the tape recordings or constant flow of images involved in flooding can be too much for some patients.
Wolpe (1969) reported the case of a client who had to be hospitalised because flooding made her so anxious. This is one reason why Wolpe preferred systematic desensitisation to flooding.For the same reason, although it has been shown to work, psychiatrists are often reluctant to suggest flooding as a therapy.
There's also a danger of spontaneous recovery, when the extinguished phobia suddenly returns. This is because the flooding sessions aren't very long and the therapy doesn't replace the fear-response with a different response, it just replaces it with no response.
Differences
Systematic desensitisation involves gradual exposure to the object you fear, but with flooding you are completely exposed to it, all at once. It's like going directly to the end of the stimulus hierarchy and skipping all the stages in between.
Systematic desensitisation is much more ethical than flooding, because the participants are only exposed gradually to the thing that they fear and they only move on to greater exposure when they feel ready. With flooding, the patient is exposed to the object they fear all at once, in a very intense way. This can be distressing.
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How it works
Flooding works by exposing the patient directly to their worst fears. For example a claustrophobic will be locked in a closet for 4 hours or an individual with a fear of flying will be sent up in a light aircraft.
It exposes the sufferer to the phobic object or situation for an extended period of time in a safe and controlled environment. Unlike systematic desensitisation which might use in vitro or virtual exposure, flooding generally involves vivo exposure.