3 ms·
There are many strategies and pacing that exposure therapy can take (the link I provided has several examples); the slow, deliberate process you describe is one
by Domenic_S 5y ago
There are many strategies and pacing that exposure therapy can take (the link I provided has several examples); the slow, deliberate process you describe is one of them, as is what's being described upthread.
- watwut 5y agoIf you don't do it deliberately, it is not therapy tho. And there is effect of becoming oversensitive when encountering strong stressor randomly and often. I stead of getting less sensitive people can start reacting more aggressively at smaller threat.
- Domenic_S 5y agoSaying to yourself, "I will respond with 1 line of dialog to the next person who hits me up" is deliberate, although the event itself will come randomly. Your train of thought here reflects classic avoidant behavior -- it's not therapeutic unless I'm in control of all the variables. Certainly you're correct depending on the type of fear being extinguished -- dropping buckets of spiders randomly on someone afraid of spiders isn't likely to help things at all, nor is dropping someone with GAD in the middle of a crowded concert -- but for the particular phobia (social anxiety) and exposure (small talk with strangers in public) we're talking about in this thread, it's definitely the low-stakes kind of exposure exposure therapy aims to provide.