phobia: 恐惧症
systematic desensitization: 系统脱敏法
classical conditioning: 经典条件反射
counterconditioning: 对抗性条件作用
neutral stimulus: 无关刺激
unconditioned stimulus: 非条件刺激
conditioned stimulus: 条件刺激
unconditioned response: 非条件反应
conditioned response: 条件反应
motivational conflict: 动机冲突
reciprocal inhibition: 交互抑制作用
graduated exposure therapy: 渐进式暴露疗法
negative reinforcement: 负强化,消极强化
operant conditioning:操作性条件反射
Do you feel too uneasy about spiders or snakes or closed-in places to carry out daily life? I guess most of us would say "NO". Then, congratulation! However, some people would actually do. We call that symptom as phobia. A person with a phobia suffers from a persistent and irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that is excessive and unreasonable given the reality of the threat. It causes tremendous anxiety and interfere with normal day-to-day life. Luckily, phobias can be managed and cured. Today we are going to introduce something about systematic desensitization which is a treatment for phobias and other anxiety, it also can help us to cope with fears and emotion issues in daily life. Let's start from its origin -- classical conditioning and counterconditioning.
焦虑和干扰。幸好,恐惧症可以控制和治愈。今天我们就是要介绍一种治疗恐惧症的方法--系统脱敏法,它也可以帮助我们应付日常生活中的害怕和情绪问题。让我们从系统脱敏法的起源开始吧。
Background
Ivan Pavlov -- Classical Conditioning & Counterconditioning
In the early 1900's, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used dogs in studying the concept of classical conditioning. Pavlov knew that a dog salivates when eating. In his experimentation, Pavlov began to present a neutral stimulus, such as signal light or bell, before feeding the dogs. Obviously, the signal had no noticeable effect on the dogs’ salivation. But Pavlov kept the signal on when the dogs were being fed (and actively salivating), and, over the course of time, Pavlov found that the signal alone, even without his offering food, gradually caused the dogs to salivate.
20世纪初期,俄罗斯生理学家伊万·巴甫洛夫用狗来研究经典条件反射理论。巴甫洛夫注意到狗在嚼吃食物时会淌口水,或者说分泌大量的唾液。在他的实验里,巴甫洛夫在给狗喂食之前,先发出一个中性刺激,比如信号灯、铃声等;很显然,这种信号对狗的唾液分泌没有效果,是一个无关刺激。然而,在喂食狗的时候(狗在嚼吃食物时进行主动的唾液分泌),巴甫洛夫继续发出先前的信号。经过一段时间后,巴甫洛夫发现:即使没有进行喂食,仅仅只是信号本身也逐渐地开始使狗分泌唾液。【这就是我们初中学的条件反射啊。。。】
So, in classical conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus (food) leads to an unconditioned response (salivation), a conditioned stimulus (light or bell), when paired consistently with the unconditioned stimulus (food) leads to a conditioned response (salivation) similar to the unconditioned response (salivation). Interestingly enough, there’s a reverse side to classical conditioning, and it's called counterconditioning. This amounts to reducing the intensity of a conditioned response (anxiety, for example) by establishing an incompatible response (relaxation) to the conditioned stimulus (a snake, for example).
Joseph Wolpe -- Counterconditioning & Systematic Desensitization
Why someone would think that counterconditioning could be used for helping human coping with fear? It's a long story. Let's just see how Wolpe did that. Wolpe's inspiration came from experiments by a researcher named Masserman . Masserman made cats "neurotic" by giving them electric shocks in a certain box. Soon the cats acted anxious whenever they were put in the box. Masserman observed that the cats lost their "neurosis" if they were fed in the box. He interpreted this in psychodynamic terms, as "breaking through the motivational conflict." Wolpe saw the same events in terms of conditioning. Wolpe replicated Masserman's work and showed that cats could be induced to show gradually less and less fear, by being fed first at a distance, then closer to the box where previously they were shocked.
为什么会有人想到用对抗性条件作用来帮助人们克服害怕呢?说来话长,还是让我们看看沃尔帕是怎么开始的吧。沃尔帕的灵感来自于马瑟曼的实验。马瑟曼通过电击使得猫对待在某个箱子里变得“神经质”。不久,这些猫--不论什么时候被置于那个箱子里--都表现得很焦虑。马瑟曼观察到:如果在那个箱子里给猫喂食的话,它们就不会如此焦虑。他以精神动力学的概念将这一现象解释为“突破动机冲突”。沃尔帕在条件反射中也看到过相同现象。于是沃尔帕重复了马瑟曼的实验,并且指出:通过将进食位置越来越移近那个猫被电击时所在的箱子,猫渐渐地不再表现出害怕和恐惧。
Wolpe called this counter-conditioning, literally using one association (between the box and feeding) to run counter to another association (between the box and shocks). Wolpe also termed the process reciprocal inhibition because he felt the responses of anxiety and eating inhibited or prevented each other. By encouraging animals to have a response incompatible with anxiety, while exposing them to the stimulus that previously caused anxiety, he found that he could weaken and eliminate the conditional response of anxiety caused by being put in the box.