A phobia is a type of anxiety in which a person experiences significant, excessive or unreasonable fear when faced with, or in anticipation of facing, a specific object or situation. Examples of phobias are fear of flying, fear of blood or fear of heights. When a person is suffering from anxiety about a specific idea or object, often the anticipation of facing the object of anxiety can play a major role. A common, and often effective, treatment for a phobia is densensitization.
Desensitization
Phobias typically occur when a person associates anxiety with a particular situation or stimulus. This connection can often feel like it is out of a person's control, which leads to future avoidance of that situation or stimulus. Desensitization techniques help a person neutralize or unlearn that association by facing that object or situation in gradual, manageable steps. At each step of the process, the goal is to achieve relaxation while facing that particular step in order to shift a person's psychological reaction to it--from one of fear and nervousness to one of relaxation.
Desensitization techniques can be introduced either through imagery or real-life exposure.
Imagery Desensitization
Imagery desensitization involves visualizing yourself facing the object of fear while working to achieve a relaxed state. This is helpful if a person feels too overwhelmed to directly face the object at first or if it is inconvenient or impossible to create a real life situation. The first step is to create a hierarchy, which is a gradually more anxiety-provoking series of visualizations or images. For example, if a person had a phobia about flying in an airplane, he would create a hierarchy of images starting with the least anxiety provoking, such as buying an airline ticket or driving to the airport, and ending with the most anxiety-provoking, such as sitting on an airplane in the air.
When the hierarchy is created, the next steps are picturing yourself in a peaceful, safe scene; visualizing the first image in the hierarchy and rating your anxiety; practicing relaxation techniques to help you return to the initial state of relaxation; and continue progressing up the hierarchy, each time achieving that initial sense of relaxation before moving on. You should only move to the next step in the hierarchy if you are able to manage the anxiety and get relaxed in the step before.
Real Life Desensitization
Real life desensitization, also known as exposure therapy, involves facing an object or situation of fear in reality, not just in your imagination. The same basic technique applies as in imagery desensitization.
As real life desensitization can be more psychologically intense than imagery desensitization, people often choose to experience imagery densensitization first. During the desensitization process, it is important to have emotional support from those close to you and a good sense of effective relaxation and coping techniques.
References
- "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- Fourth Edition -- Text Revision"; American Psychiatric Association; 2000
- "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook"; Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D.; 1995.
