Psychological perspectives P1

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Setting the Scene

The aim of these tasks is to gain an overview of the key psychological perspectives and their application to health and social care.

Assignment Task One (Part a):

1. Describe the application of behaviourist perspectives in health and social care. (P1)

Student Guidance to help you complete this task

Hand in date for this Task:

Task 1a (P1):  02-11-09

Task One

For this assignment I have decided to describe how the theories of classical conditioning can be applied in health and social care settings that deal with challenging or modifying behaviour.

Classical conditioning

This is a theory which was originally developed by Ivan Pavlov in his experiments on a dog salivating when being shown food, it was discovered when the dog had learned the arrival of the assistant meant food was coming and so the dog salivated early (before even smelling the food.) from this experiment we can understand why classical conditioning is to do with association, some psychologists (evolutionary) say that some of the prehistoric phobias were survival related for example associating heights or oceans of water with death therefore creating the phobia of heights and water which make you avoid them in order to avoid death. In my opinion this makes sense, in the same way that animals and prehistoric hums would have avoided brightly coloured berries as they were poisonous.

Applying classical conditioning to the health and social care sector

Like any behaviourist theory of learning, classical conditioning helps explain certain behaviourisms and why we do specific things that we do. For instance it can help explain why people have phobias or eating disorders due to a food aversion.

Classical conditioning can also explain common fears of hospitals or dentists, addictions such as smoking or drinking and even sexual deviations.

Classical conditioning can be used to treat these behaviours in various ways, such as:

• Systematic desensitisation
• Implosion therapy (flooding)
• Aversion therapy
• These aim to break up the SR link

In health and social care there are many setting where classical conditioning is used to treat an illness/habit/phobia for example therapists who specialise in psychological disorders who are treat a patient with a phobia of the dark (Nyctophobia) will first of all go through a process of generalisation where they associate the fear with something else such as a doll or specific thing which does not create the same anxiety. However if implosion therapy was used to treat this fear of the dark then the patient may become even more scared, that is why it is important that the method of treatment is relevant to the patient and his circumstances.

Classical conditioning is also used in health and social care settings to cure people with food aversions (eating disorders) because they associate the food with something very bad or discomforting- this is one of the hardest types of illness to treat and needs to taken great care that the patient makes a little progress rather than to un-do all the work and development which has been made.

To help treat people with addictions such as alcohol, classical conditioning is used like in the case of George Best where he was given medication which had no effect unless he drank any alcohol when he would become violently sick, for a while the patient may still drink alcohol but once they have become so sick they will eventually avoid drinking the alcohol because they associate it with the unpleasant vomiting.

In conclusion

My conclusion is that classical conditioning is still used a lot in health and social care setting although more so to help people who have specific illnesses/addictions or fears, rather than helping to improve behaviour or learn mentally challenged children to overcome their habits such as bed wetting which is wear the operant conditioning would come into place. The two theories are both good although would both be used in very different situations.