In this chapter of the book Phobia: Psychological and Pharmacological Treatment, Mavissakalian and Barlow present a general discussion of several theoretical models of phobia. The term "phobia" itself is defined as a clinical condition in which one or more intense fears is a predominant symptom interfering with a patient's life.
An example of one phobia is "agoraphobia" which is characterized as a fear of going out to public places accompanied by fears of being home alone. The authors note, however, that agoraphobia is generally more complex than other phobias and may deserve a special characterization of its own. Nonetheless, it is characterized by the intense fear that is associated with all other phobias.
According to Mavissakalian and Barlow, there are several different conceptual models of phobia; however, the three primary treatment frameworks used to characterize the conditions giving rise to phobia are the psychoanalytic model, the behavioral model, and the biological model. The authors summarize each of these three models as follows:
(1) The psychoanalytic model. In this clinical view, a phobia is characterized as the effect of neurotic anxiety arising as a result of sexual or aggressive unconscious conflict. Treatment based on the psychoanalytic model emphasizes insight-oriented therapy with the clinician helping the patient to clarify and interpret the unconscious factors associated with the condition.
(2) The behavioral model. Essentially, this model holds that phobic behavior, like all behavior, is the product of learning mechanisms such as conditioning, reinforcement, and modelling processes. A variety of treatment strategies have evolved from the behavioral model depending upon whether the phobia is characterized as having arisen from conditioning processes or operational processes or modelling processes.
For example, an operational-process approach essentially ignores the anxiety and focu...