what do you think?

[moggy]

the other night i was watching a programme on tv about anxiety and this guy was saying how he'd successfully treated a number of his patients with specific situational anxiety by encouraging them to repeatably expose themselves to the situation that made them anxious - by doing this they learned that nothing terrible actually happened to them and, over time, the fear of the situation diminished and their anxiety receded
anybody out there got any views or experience of this?

[Charlene]

Hi moggy,

The treatment you're referring to is known as "Exposure Therapy". Using this approach, a person gradually exposes themselves to the particular triggers of their anxiety. Exposure Therapy is particularly useful for phobias, which involve irrational fears and the avoidance behaviours that results from those fears. For instance, if a person is terrified of being alone in an elevator, they would start by watching the elevator come and go for a short period, then they could stand in the elevator with a friend for a short period, then they could travel up one floor with that friend and repeat that step several more times. Then they would try one floor by themselves, and so on. Exposure techniques enable a person to tolerate their anxiety while learning that no harm comes to them from being in the elevator alone. If practiced often enough, and in conjunction with positive self talk, a person can learn to overcome their fear. A person who wants to overcome any phobia, including agoraphobia, needs to expose themselves to the very object or place or situation that they fear, but they need to do it very gently and very gradually while building up their mental defenses until their terror subsides. It is something that needs to be practiced often, but again, very gradually and with the help of cognitve behavioural therapy (or positive self talk). Hope that helps. :)