Gradual Exposure Therapy Essay

A phobia is an extreme or irrational fear of something. Many phobias are in relation to one another. As people, we must realize that phobias cannot be fixed by ourselves. In order to help individuals that we may encounter, we must completely understand phobias. We cannot judge them for something they cannot help. To help an individual feel more at ease it is our job to know the causes, effects, impacts, and treatments of their phobia. This would help to completely understand the phobia and in the end, help us all to support each

Most contemporary psychological treatment approaches are predecessors of the ancient and medieval philosophies and theories. Cognitive behavioural therapy as one of the modern treatment method in not an independently formed treatment, different theories have contributed to its present shape and application.

For the ones who can not use medication for help, there is this new type of therapy that can help someone with their phobias. Virtual reality is a new thing that is a lot like facing their fears , but they are not actually in the presence of the phobia. Let's go back to the fear of clowns (coulrophobia) again, Say someone is completely terrified of clowns and wants to get over their fear because of the recent sightings. They would might with a behaviorist as anyone else would but ask for virtual reality for a

The fear of heights can sometimes leave people frozen in terror. There is large amount of evidence suggesting that virtual reality therapy has successfully helped alleviate conditions similar to PTSD. This is accomplished by slowly increasing the amount of stressors, as to not overload the patient with irrational fear. For example, with fear of heights, researchers can gradually increase the difficulty of the simulation, so that the height of the platform increases after every session. In a similar case study, 49 patients had volunteered to participate in a virtual reality treatment for their fear of flying. Results showed, “By the 6-month follow-up, 90% of treated participants had flown since completing treatment” (Anderson 2001). Effectiveness also hugely depends on plausibility and affordability. We need to consider if this treatment is convenient for

For their study, “47 undergraduate students at a Midwest university” were gathered through an online sign up process in which no demographics were collected in the study and the participants had the motivation of receiving class credit for their participation (556). Out of the 47, 2 participants were excluded from the final result due to problems with the procedure, leaving a total of 45. These individuals took part in a virtual reality simulation designed to help people overcome fear of heights. Each participant wore a specially designed set of goggles that allowed for the wearer to have a 360 degree view of the virtual environment and was given a hand-held controller to control their movements throughout the environment. The environment consisted of

You are in an airport waiting for your plane to arrive. You've never flown before, and are more terrified than you can ever remember being. Everyone has told you the supposedly comforting statistics - "millions of planes take off each day and there's only a handful of crashes," "flying is safer than driving." You know rationally that there is no reason to be so scared, but regardless your heart is racing, your palms are sweating, and you're light-headed. Simply the thought of being up in the air, out of control, makes you feel faint. Finally the flight attendant announces that your plane has arrived. But as all the other passengers line up to get onboard, you grab your luggage and walk straight out of the airport,

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

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

Consequently, virtual reality (VR) therapy is now an alternative that is frequently used as a standard exposure treatment for heights and flying phobias (as cited in Rothbaum et al., 2002, P.428-432). While the professional VR system could be relatively expensive, the study conducted by Malbos, Mestre, Note, & Gellato (2008) suggested that a multi-component therapy that involve VR exposure using mainstream video-game level of editor with powerful 3D engines would also be effective comparing to the professionals after eight

Scared of spiders? Heights? Flying in an airplane? Or any other thing that makes someone tremble into fear; people who have anxiety or phobias. Those examples of the spiders, heights, and flying in an airplane are provoked by a visual and auditory stimuli. Some people want to be able to conquer their phobias or help with something that gives them high anxiety however some therapy does not work for specific individuals. There is now a new therapy that is now on the rise to becoming more popular, virtual therapy. Virtual therapy uses computer programs, visual immersion devices, and has the capability of artificially creating a virtual environment. Using virtual therapy allowing one to experience the horrid thing happening to them and being able

“Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically exposure therapy, has garnered a great deal of empirical support in the literature for the treatment of anxiety disorders” (Gerardi et al., 2010). Exposure therapy is an established PTSD treatment (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001) and so is a benchmark for comparing other therapies (Taylor et al, 2003). “Exposure therapy typically involves the patient repeatedly confronting the feared stimulus in a graded manner, either in imagination or in vivo. Emotional processing is an essential component of exposure therapy” (Gerardi et al., 2010). “Exposure therapy in the virtual environment allows the participant to experience a sense of presence in an immersive, computer-generated, three-dimensional,

In addition to cognitive therapy, Mr. Wayne will undergo exposure therapy. The purpose of exposure therapy is for the patient to be accustomed and gain control of the fear within. However, psychiatrists should delicately handle exposure therapy in order not to re-traumatize the patient. There are two types of exposures: in vitro and in vivo. As we continue with our therapy sessions, Mr. Wayne will go through both types of exposures. In vitro exposure is when the patient imagines the exposure to the stimulus. On the contrary, in vivo is when the patient is actually exposed to the stimulus. Through in vitro exposure, he will answer specific questions pertaining to his parents’ death, which in turn, will lead to him to open up and express his

A topic and disorder that is widely researched and is of special interest throughout the field of

Does Claustrophobia cause people to deviate from confined areas? The independent variable is claustrophobia, and the dependent variable is the confined areas. Our hypothesis to this question is yes claustrophobia can be cured and reduced by cognitive behavioral therapy. The issue of claustrophobia is very important due to its impact on an individuals everyday life, since it affects a number of individuals throughout the world. A phobia is an anxiety disorder that is shown by an irrational fear of confined spaces. This phobia can cause a person to stay away form confined spaces such as a crowded store, sporting and social events, as well as elevators that could bring on this irrational fear. In society this can cause a

Fear is a normal and an important human reaction to something dangerous, it keeps one out of danger, because fear is disliked and one tries ones best to avoid the object or situation of fear. It causes physical changes known as fight-or-flight reaction, which causes blood pressure to increase and the heart rate to speed up to pump blood to the large muscles used to run away, to balance this the human body has sweat glands which produce perspiration to cool the body.