Desensitization

SELF-DESENSITIZATION INSTRUCTIONS
Plus Role-playing

A Proven Technique To Reduce Fears, Phobias, and Anxiety

INDEX

Introduction

Systematic Desensitization Therapy

The Self-Desensitization Process and Steps

1. Creating the Anxiety Hierarchy

Sample Hierarchies

2. Deep Muscle Relaxation

3. The Desensitization Sessions

Making it work in real life

Role-Playing

Instructions are based upon the desensitization procedure developed by Joseph Wolpe. (see his book, AThe Practice of Behavior Therapy@). In about 90% of the cases, persons completing desensitization are able to reduce fears or anxieties to normal levels of the fears/anxieties one associated with specific situations They were designed so that one person can administer desensitization to himself. It would also be possible to administer them to someone else. DS has been demonstrated by many experiments to be an effective way of reducing fears.

Get (or Make) a Relaxation Tape

In addition to using these instructions, it is desirable to use a set of taped instructions by Tom G. Stevens, Ph.D. (CSULB) ASelf-Desensitization Instructions@. (You may bring your own C-90 cassette tape to the Learning Assistance Center, and they will make a copy of it on your tape which you may keep. Ask for PST #11.) If the tape is not available to you, then get any tape that will cause you to feel very relaxed. See if you can find a tape that uses the "Jacobson Muscle Relaxation" procedure–it is the one proven to work. You can even make your own tape from written instructions of the Jacobson technique–or some other technique that works for you. The Jacobson technique starts by having close your eyes, then you tense and relax the muscles in your fingers and hands, then your arms, then your feet and legs, then your back and neck, then your breathing and stomach, then your face and jaw. At each stage you first tense the muscles, then compare the feelings of tension with the feelings of relaxation and then make the muscles as relaxed as possible. Repeat this process for each muscle group until all muscles are very relaxed. After you make a tape, substitute this tape for the relaxation tape called for below.

INTRODUCTION

Over the years you have learned to associate the feelings of anxiety, nervousness, discomfort, and the desire to avoid with your target behavior. The techniques you will learn from this manual will enable you to gradually learn a new set of associations for your target behavior. The new associations will be relaxation, calmness, comfort, and a willingness to interact in your target behavior.

Using this manual, you will use the same techniques professional therapists employ in helping people relieve their anxiety reactions. The manual will be divided into four major sections: constructing an anxiety hierarchy; learning desensitization techniques; learning role playing techniques; and keeping a record of your progress and your target behavior when it occurs (as you did when keeping records of your baseline).

Desensitization Therapy

When a person learns to feel anxious in a situation, he can be taught to not to feel anxious by using a technique called desensitization. The purpose of this desensitization portion of the manual is to teach you to do something that is incompatible with the anxiety you feel in your target situation; that is, the purpose of desensitization is to teach you to relax in your target situation by giving you repeated experiences of imagining various situations that are related to your target situation while you are relaxed.

Obviously, a state of deep relaxation is psychologically and physically incompatible with fear, discomfort, and anxiety. Usually, when a situation bothers us, we avoid dwelling on it or thinking about it frequently; and when we do think about it, we feel a bit anxious and uncomfortable. Using desensitization therapy, you will be able to think about your target behavior and imagine it vividly without feeling anxious for you will be in a totally relaxed state. After you are able to imagine the situation in total relaxation, you will be well on your way to decreasing the anxiety you feel in the real-life situation, enabling you to feel more comfortable and confident. In other words, by following this process of relaxation while imagining your target situation, you will become Adesensitized@ to it, and the situation will lose much of its power to cause you anxiety.

A final part of this desensitization process must be mentioned. If, at the beginning of desensitization, you were to imagine your target situation in its most frightening form, you would probably not be able to relax. An example of this would be a boy, whose target situation is interacting with members of the opposite sex, imagining himself with an attractive girl on a date. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to desensitize yourself to your target situation all at once. Therefore, what you must do is desensitize yourself to the situation bit by bit. You must approach the fearful situation very gradually, working on its least anxiety-arousing components first so that desensitization will proceed gradually enough that you won=t have to present an aspect of the fear that is too great to handle. It=s like working one=s way up to lifting a great weight by starting with very small ones. In order to work your way gradually through the target behavior, you must construct what is called an anxiety hierarchy, which is a list of component situations related to your target situation B arranged in order from least to most frightening, or situations leading up to your target behavior. More detailed instructions will be given later on in the manual.

Desensitization Steps

Those, then, are the basic principles involved in desensitization. Here is a brief summary of the steps you will go through in desensitizing yourself:

Step 1. Anxiety Hierarchy. First, you will construct an anxiety hierarchy, which is a list of those situations involved in and leading up to your target situation ranked in order from the lease disturbing to the most disturbing.

Step 2. Relaxation Training. Then you will train yourself in deep muscle relaxation.

Step 3. Desensitization Sessions. You will then go through a series of desensitization sessions. At the beginning of a session, using what you=ve learned from your deep muscle relaxation training (to be explained), you will relax. You will then imagine a scene representing the weakest item on your hierarchy while maintaining your relaxed state. A given step on your anxiety hierarchy must be repeatedly imagined until you no longer exhibit anxiety at the presentation of it. You will then imagine the next higher anxiety-producing step, and so on. Thus, the anxiety cues are gradually decreased until you can present the most frightening step without feeling any anxiety whatsoever.

Step 1. Create The Anxiety Hierarchy

The anxiety hierarchy is a list of situations relating to your target behavior to which you react with varying degrees of anxiety. The most disturbing item is placed at the bottom of the list and the least disturbing at the top. In working on the hierarchy, you will begin with the top item on the list (that is, the least disturbing item) and work step by step through the hierarchy to the last item (the one which produces the greatest anxiety affecting your target behavior). Thus, the hierarchy provides a framework for desensitization, through relaxation, of progressively more anxiety-producing situations.

Construction of an anxiety hierarchy can aid you in three ways:

Constructing The Hierarchy

Constructing a good hierarchy is very important since it provides the framework for approaching the problem. Time and care must be devoted to it. As was stated above, the hierarchy is a list of the situations related to your target behavior which you react to with graded amounts of anxiety. Such a hierarchy is constructed in three steps. Now, please get a pencil and some paper and follow the instructions closely.