Relaxing Your Fears Away Systematic Desensitization

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Relaxing Your Fears Away Systematic
Desensitization

• By Alex R.

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Systematic Desensitization

• Decreasing your level of anxiety or fear very
  gently and gradually
• First suggested by Joseph Wolpe
• Used in treatment of anxiety disorders, and more
  specifically, phobias
• A behavior therapy used to unlearn ineffective
  behavior

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Theoretical Propositions

• Research began as study of reduction of fear in
  rats
• Photo of cat presented during feeding
• Reciprocal inhibition
• Wolpe used these ideas to try to treat human
  anxiety in his 1961 study
• The systematic desensitization treatment of
  neuroses
• 39 test subjects, totaling 65 phobias

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Step One Relaxation Training

• The first five to six sessions with your
  therapist deal not with the phobia, but working
  to achieve total relaxation
• Progressive form of muscle relaxation is used
• Process involves tensing and relaxing various
  groups of muscles throughout the body until deep
  state of relaxation achieved
• After training, the patient is able to achieve
  total relaxation whenever they want

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Step Two Construction of an Anxiety Hierarchy

• Develop a list, with your therapist, of anxiety
  producing situations or scenes
• Begin with a situation that is slightly
  uncomfortably
• Continue to list up to the most frightening
  situations
• List can have anywhere from around five to 20
  items on the list

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Example Hierarchy Claustrophobia

• Reading of miners trapped
• Having polish on fingernails with no way to
  remove it
• Being told someone is in jail
• Having a tight ring on finger
• On a journey by train
• Traveling in an elevator with an
  operator
• Traveling alone in an elevator
• Passing through a tunnel on a train
• Being locked in a room
• Being stuck in an elevator

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Step Three Desensitization

• The actual unlearning
• No direct contact with the feared situation is
  necessary
• First Place yourself in a state of deep
  relaxation
• Second the therapist begins walking your through
  your hierarchy
• You imagine the situation and try to remain calm
• If you remain relaxed, you continue through the
  hierarchy
• If you experience anxiety at any time, you are
  instructed to raise your index finger
• If anxiety occurs the therapist stops, you return
  to full relaxation, and the description begins at
  a number lower on the hierarchy
• The process continues until the patient is able
  to remain relaxed throughout the whole hierarchy

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Results

• 39 cases reported in Wolpes article
• Success of therapy judged by patients own
  reports and by occasional direct observation
• Desensitization process rate of success
  determined as
• Completely successful (freedom from phobic
  reactions)
• Partially successful (phobic reactions of 20 or
  less of original strength)
• Unsuccessful
• Out of the 39 cases, total of 68 phobias treated
• 62 of the phobias (35 patients) were completely
  or partially successful (91 success rate)
• The other 9 unsuccessful were mostly due to
  special problems that did not allow for proper
  treatment. These problems included inability to
  imagine the situations presented in the hierarchy
• Average number of sessions was 12.3

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Criticisms

• Mainly people from psychoanalytic camp
• Claimed that these methods were only treating the
  symptoms and not the underlying causes of anxiety
• They believed other symptoms would appear to
  replace the ones treated
• Wolpe followed up that 25 of the 35 patients who
  received successful desensitization had no
  reports of relapse or new phobias for the four
  years he followed up the patients

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Recent Applications

• After publication, Wolpes methods are considered
  treatment of choice for anxiety disorders,
  especially phobias
• Paul (1969) Public speaking phobia
• Practice speech, split into treatment groups
• Systematic desensitization proved to be most
  successful
• Fredrickson (2000)
• Use of reciprocal inhibition to cancel out
  negative thoughts with positive ones
• Zettle (2003)
• Math phobia progressive relaxation, math
  hierarchy
• 11 out of 12 successful

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Youtube Clip

• http//youtube.com/watch?vCQgKEp_NhHkfeaturerel
  ated