One concept that is hard for me to fully comprehend is flooding. The idea that a behavioral treatment for phobias that involves prolonged exposure to a feared stimulus, thereby providing the maximal amount of opportunity for the conditioned fear response to extinguish. I feel very uncomfortable with this type of therapy. Granted it's not for everyone, I just keep thinking of the worst possible outcome. What happens to a patient who lets say was in the military and has PTSD from being over seas and they were not being honest in therapy. His or her therapist will most likely know when they are lying or hiding something, but if they don't catch it and offer flooding is there more of a risk? What happens if they cannot handle the amount of anxiety and they go out of control? For some reason this just makes me anxious and it is not something that I am sure if the outcomes are worth it.
I completely agree with you. I for one who has anxiety and phobias about particular things can not even imagine going through the process of flooding. I'm actually getting anxiety and nervous at just the thought of prolonged exposure to my fears. I don't believe that it would ever work for me and I don't think that it is safe whatsoever. You're right, what if it ends up causing even more anxiety and the patient goes crazy.
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