Systematic desensitization is a very personal topic for me, and I enjoyed reading more about it in the textbook. Becoming desensitized to certain fears and phobias was the journey I had to take when I was diagnosed with OCD. It is a type of behavioral therapy based on classical conditioning, and its main goal is to try to remove the fear response, and instead instill a relaxation response to the phobia one has using counter conditioning. What is really interesting about this type of therapy is the act of building a fear hierarchy, with things creating little fear at the bottom, and things creating the most fear at the top. Patients will start at the bottom exposing themselves to the phobia and practicing relaxation as they go. Until that stage of the hierarchy evokes no fear, you will keep inducing that same fear until the anxiety depletes completely. You will continue up the hierarchy until all fear responses have subsided. This behavioral technique worked really well for me and is the #1 treatment for OCD diagnosis!
Thank you for being open about your experience in this topic! It is awesome to hear from someone who has had this form of treatment and how it has helped them. I also found this topic to be very interesting to learn about and I think in someway we can all apply it in our lives.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you added the chart in with the topic it really gave me a visual for systematic desensitization and the worse it is the more fear you will have. For example, just thinking about a spider doesnt make you really afraid but, it just sparks your blood pressure a bit, but if you have an actual spider on your bare arm you can feel it crawling on you and your fear will go crazy.
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