DECREASING SYMPTOMS OF SPECIFIC PHOBIAS WITH COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY

Abstract

Emotions are inborn within every individual. Joy, sadness, and fear are among many forms of emotions. Fear emerges as a reaction to any threatening and dangerous objects or situations. Extreme fear of a certain object or situation for irrational reasons and incoherent with reality is called a specific phobia. One effective therapy to treat specific phobias is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This research sought to discover the effectiveness of CBT in decreasing symptoms of specific phobias. This research hypothesized that CBT was effective in decreasing symptoms of specific phobias, as shown in the decreased scores of a phobia of height before and after CBT. This research’s subjects were ten people with specific phobias characteristics, whose scores were obtained using one group pretest-posttest design. The severity measure for specific phobia adults, adapted from American Psychological Association, was the tool for collecting data; the alpha coefficient of reliability (α) was 0.841. CBT techniques applied in this research were cognitive restructuring in the cognitive model ABC, Socratic dialogue, and systematic desensitization. The data analysis method used was non-parametric analysis, the Wilcoxon signed-rank. The results showed the pretest-posttest scores as 0.034 and post-test follow-up as 0.033 (p<0.05), which implied the effectivity of CBT in decreasing symptoms of specific phobias. This study suggested that in conducting online CBT in the future, researchers may explore more platforms or applications supporting the therapy session.