Therapeutic applications of the principles of Stimulus Generalisation and Discrimination?

Question

...in relation to treating phobias.

This question is a part of my 1st year psychology coursework and I'm totally confused as to how ths might work.

Help? =[

Answer 1

In Behavior Modification they have a method called stimulus control where you teach a person to perform a certain response in the presence of a particular stimulus. Stimulus Generalization would be using that stimulus in different environments after they learn the correct response in one environment in the hopes of generalizing the response to different situations.
Stimulus discrimination is learning to do something in the presence of one stimulus and to stop doing it in the presence of another stimulus. Another way is to teach a person to distinguish between the stimuli that should elicit a response and the stimuli that should inhibit a response. For example, learning to seek a date at a concert, but not in Church during services.
Regarding phobias, stimulus generalization would be like teaching a person not to fear heights at the top of a building and then generalizing that teaching to other height situations.
Stimulus discrimination would be teaching a person who had suffered a traumatic event as a child to distinguish people who are not likely to treat her badly from people who might.