Systematic Desensitization Essay

In the text “Relaxing Your Fears away,” the author presents how Joseph Wolpe, a behavior therapist, used a behavioral technique called systematic desensitization to treat anxiety disorders. Systematic desensitization is a technique that is supposed to lower a person’s level of anxiety steadily. The reason he used this technique was to see if this technique actually worked using his prior ideas that two feelings or responses cannot occur at the same time. Wolpe focused on the phobias his patients had and proposed that when his patients were in a relaxed state, then they would not respond with fear when presented with something that gave them anxiety.

According to “Relaxing Your Fears Away” by Wolpe, J. (1961), which describes the systematic desensitization treatment of neuroses, people cannot experience relaxation and fear at the same time. The author stated the theoretical proposition that the reason people get phobias is that they learned a certain behavior sometime in their life and this thing became the fear in their brain.

"The world will remain as brutal as our level of desensitization to its brutality." (Unknown) Many humans in this world no longer feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty, violence, or suffering as they are overexposed to such images. In other words, these people have become desensitized and display no empathy towards others. In the event that one is exposed to these types of surroundings on a regular basis they begin to adapt and become unaware of how heinous their actions actually are. Though not everyone partakes in these atrocious acts of violence, they are still in the wrong as they are simply bystanders watching the victims being abused. In essence desensitization causes humans to adapt, become callous to their surroundings, and become apathetic towards the others right to live.

Systematic desensitisation includes three steps. The first step is to help the person construct an anxiety hierarchy. An anxiety hierarchy is a list of stimuli related to the specific source of anxiety, in this case being in a busy public place. The stimuli are ranked from the least to the most feared or avoided. An example of an anxiety hierarchy for someone with agoraphobia might include:

The classical conditioning model was one of the first theories used to describe phobias. Many years ago, scientists observed that one could willingly elicit a fear response in an animal or human through systematic teaching. For example, if every time a rat is presented with a low buzzing noise, it is electrically shocked, eventually, when it hears the noise alone (with no shock), it will exhibit symptoms of fear. (3) Scientists

Fear, an intensive form of anxiety, can be crippling in nature to some people. It is important that we overcome our fears to be able to grow and mature. There are three main ways in which we can manage or resolve fear: behavioral therapy, systematic desensitization, and exposure desensitization. Behavioral therapy was introduced by John B. Watson, a behavioral psychologist, and involved an individual alternating engagements in coping and relaxation techniques to help desensitize that person to the stressors (Seaward, 2015). Systematic desensitization involves the anxious person learning to de-stress from the fear in small, piecemeal increments through which they always feel in control. Exposure desensitization, on the other hand, occurs when the individual is introduced to the real stressor is brief and save encounters with the stressor. Through combinations of the three different ways to

Desensitization is a predominant treatment that exceeds expectations to diminish the fear in a patient of a circumstance, by presenting them to it either in actuality or in one's imagination. In the first place, the patient should consider storms deliberately until the point when the contemplation isn't dreaded. Second, take a look at photographs of the storm until unfeared. Next, watch recordings of the storm until the point that the video is unfeared. Finally, the patient should play sounds from storms noisily for a considerable length of time until the point that the sounds are unfeared. Ensure you never proceed onward to the following stage unless you've effectively finished the past one. By finishing these means one ought to have the capacity

Aversive stimuli often includes vomit and paralysis-inducing substances, electric shock and odor producing substances like ammonia (Maletzky 1991). There are two variations of this technique. The first is called covert sensitization, which is a safer option that has been used. This technique involves the imagination of the stimuli’s versus actually experiencing them (Maletzsky). The other variation is called shame aversion therapy which involves the patient being forced into public humiliation to coincide with his/her deviant behavior (Langevin 1983). This has only been tested in uncontrolled studies and there was nothing consistent (Langevin 1983). There are three other methods that are used frequently, especially when offenders don’t take to the first two that were mentioned. The first is called masturbatory satiation, in which the goal is to reduce negative sexual attraction by pairing it with boredom. The patient is actually told to masturbate for up to an hour, while talking outload about his fantasy, and must continue even after an orgasm. The second method is called orgasmic reconditioning. This method involves the transfer of deviant arousal towards a normal

Specific Phobia, under the category of anxiety disorder, there are five different specifiers. Nonetheless, this paper will focus on the treatment for claustrophobia, a situational phobia subtype. In general, there are two types of treatments, psychological and biological. However, several research suggested that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which incorporates the exposure of anxious situation to the patient, can obtain approximately 70%-80% of improvement rate (Beidel, Bulik, & Stanley, n.d., P.156). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine which type of CBT would be the most effective for specific phobia situational specifier patients who are experiencing personal distress or distress to others and/or functional

In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a prototypical anxiety disorder, the trauma can be considered an unconditioned stimulus, and the continued fear response in PTSD patients can be considered a conditioned response. PTSD has in fact been associated with enhanced acquisition and slower extinction of fear responses (1).

Dogs are known as a man’s best friend. They are loyal companions that most people love to have around and enjoy their time with. Unfortunately, there are others who cannot enjoy this companionship because of the intense fear and anxious behavior connected to having a specific phobia. (Rosenberg & Kosslyn, 2014, page 182) Specific phobia is defined as an “anxiety disorder characterized by excessive or unreasonable anxiety about or fear related to a specific situation or object.”(182) It is crucial for those suffering to seek out professional help and treatment to overcome their fears and not feel restricted by them. This paper will argue that my patient, Princess Sophia, was suffering from cynophobia, the fear of dogs. I explored different cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) treatments and used the best form of treatment called systematic desensitization. It was effective and the best path to take when dealing with specific phobias.

The researcher was trying to determine if we become desensitized to lying after we do it once or twice.

In dentistry, anxiety is categorized into two: Dental phobia and dental anxiety. A person with dental phobia tends to avoid treatment maybe because of unpleasant experience in the past. Dental anxiety, by contrast, relates to the psychological and physiological variations of a non-pathological fear response to a dentist’s appointment or treatment. Individuals who cancels, avoids, or postpones dental visits are the anxious patients (Bhola and Malhotra, 2014).It is a major dilemma in pediatric dental practice and it exists in a considerable proportion of children and adolescents. According to the study of Gao et al (2013), about 6-15% of the world's adult population avoids dental care due to dental anxiety and dental phobia. The catastrophic

Some clinicians have reported that patients undergoing aversive treatment utilizing electric shocks have experienced increased anxiety and anxiety-related symptoms that may interfere with the conditioning process as well as lead to decreased acceptance of the treatment. Few clinicians have reported a worrisome increase in hostility among patients receiving aversion therapy, especially those undergoing treatment using chemical aversants. Although aversion therapy has some

However, phobia can even cause people to risk their health. For example, the fear of dentists can leave people suffering from it willing to risk the health of their teeth in order to avoid having to go through an exam or procedure ( MacKay). When one knows about an upcoming confrontation, it can be the reason why one can not sleep or finds it hard to focus on important tasks. Due the change in daily routine, this unrealistic fear can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, brought on by and object, event or situation. But even animals have anxieties and phobias just as every human being (www.phobia-help.de). A phobia is an irrational fear, one knows that the object or situation, one is scared off, can not hurt one, but one is still afraid. A reason for this is that the human mind can not distinguish what is real and imaginary. When one has uncontrollable anxiety attacks, he loses rational judgement, leading to complicated problems. However, anyone can develop a phobia, men and women, teens and young adults, and elderly lady or a one-year-old boy (MacKay).