Why does systematic desensitization work

Next, start making a list of therapists in your area. If cost is an issue, check out our guide to affordable therapy. It can be even harder if you have a mental health condition, such as a phobia, anxiety, or panic disorder. Systematic desensitization can help you overcome your fears at a pace that works for you.

Don't face mental health challenges alone. Instead, learn how to get the support you need to thrive. Behavioral therapy is an umbrella term for therapies that treat mental health disorders.

It identifies and helps change self-destructive or unhealthy…. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing EMDR therapy is an interactive psychotherapy technique used to relieve psychological stress. It's impossible to name all of the possible fears that people can have, but here's a list of the most common and unique ones, including a fear of….

Online therapy has proven to help those experiencing isolation, depression, and anxiety. Here are the best free online therapy and counseling websites. Teen Counseling offers virtual therapy from professionals who specialize in working with teens. Here's how it works, what it costs, and whether it's…. When it comes to addiction, CBT can help you take steps to reframe your situation to avoid the triggers of your addiction.

Online therapy is making mental health services accessible and more affordable for many people. Here are our 10 recommended picks for online therapy. Reality therapy views behavior as a choice. Learn more here. Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. The therapist will first analyze the patient and the experiences that have resulted in this fear. At times the patient may be unaware of why they have the phobia.

In this case the counselor may reveal some repressed memories and emotions. Before teaching the clients techniques they will first speak to them about what they are afraid and what might have caused this innate fear. Anxiety can result in rapid and shallow breathing coming from the chest which is called thoracic. The individual may be unaware that their body is resulting in abnormal breathing. When this happens it can get in the way of carbon dioxide and oxygen within the body.

They will respond to stress by sweating or experiencing a panic attack. If the client has a panic disorder the therapist is going to show them what the stress does to their muscles and why it has turned into an automatic response. The client will learn about the response and why it results in prolonged exposure to stress in the body.

Treatment involved placing the young man in a state of relaxation and then asking him to imagine low anxiety scenes such as an unknown man touching a trough of water containing one drop of urine.

In addition, a real bottle of urine was presented at a distance and moved closer to the patient in gradual steps. A follow-up 4 years later revealed complete remission of the compulsive behaviors. The fact that the systematic desensitization technique can be applied in images means that many of the practical disadvantages involved in in vivo exposition with this type of phobia can be eliminated.

Some people cannot create a vivid image and thus systematic desensitization is not always effective there are individual differences. Systematic desensitization is a slow process, taking on average sessions. Although, research suggests that the longer the technique takes the more effective it is. This absence of disturbing elements makes this technique less likely to provoke abandonment of the therapy. However, systematic desensitization is not effective in treating serious mental disorders like depression and schizophrenia.

Studies have shown that neither relaxation nor hierarchies are necessary, and that the important factor is just exposure to the feared object or situation. Systematic desensitization is based on the idea that abnormal behavior is learned.

The biological approach would disagree and say we are born with a behavior and therefore it must be treated medically. Treats the symptoms not the cause s of the phobia. This is a significant weakness because cognitions and emotions are often the motivators of behavior and so the treatment is only dealing with symptoms not the underlying causes. Social phobias and agoraphobia do not seem to show as much improvement. Could it be that there are other causes for phobias than classical conditioning?

For example, if a fear of public speaking originates with poor social skills then phobic reduction is more likely to occur in a treatment which includes learning effective social skills than systematic desensitization alone.

Lang et al. Using Progressive Muscle Relaxation. Visualization Techniques. Desensitization, Hierarchies and Social Anxiety. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles.

Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Deerfield, MA: Channing L. Bete Co. Corey, Gerald. Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy.

Related Articles. What Is Breathing? Systematic Desensitization to Stop Panic Attacks.