Gradually exposing yourself to situations in which you face your fears is an excellent way to overcome your fears.
My first success with using systematic desensitization to overcome fears occurred before I became a psychologist while an undergraduate student at the University of Winnipeg. Anxious at having to deliver presentations in some of my classes, I decided it was time to investigate techniques I could use to overcome my fears.
During my research at the university library, I came across the technique known as systematic desensitization. I was excited to learn that if I gradually exposed myself to situations related to my fear while using cognitive and behavioural skills to manage my anxiety during this exposure, I would eventually overcome my fears. Even better, I learned that I could initially do this exposure work by visualizing myself in the situations.
As the old saying goes, the rest is history. I quickly began visualizing myself in public-speaking situations while practicing managing my anxiety with cognitive and behavioural skills. I then began exposing myself, while applying these skills, to actual public-speaking situations. I became more comfortable giving presentations with each exposure as my public-speaking anxiety decreased. I eventually reached the point at which I began to look forward to and enjoy giving presentations rather than dreading them. To this day, public speaking is one of my favourite activities.
I have systematic desensitization to thank for that. My experience was a compelling personal example of the power of systematic desensitization in overcoming fear and anxiety. I have harnessed this power to help my clients overcome their fears in my practice as a Calgary psychologist and a Cochrane psychologist. In the remainder of this article, I will discuss how you can use systematic desensitization to overcome your fears. I have helped my clients apply this technique to overcome their fears in anxiety counselling (including social anxiety counselling and counselling for phobias).
How desensitization works: More exposure leads to less reaction
Research has consistently demonstrated the phenomenon of desensitization: The more we are exposed to a stimulus, the less intense our reaction tends to become whether the stimulus is a light, a sound or an anxiety-provoking situation. This means that if you want to overcome your fear of a particular situation, putting yourself in that situation should eventually result in your anxiety response decreasing. In other words, you should become desensitized to the situation.
Given that achieving desensitization is a fairly straightforward process, you may wonder why so many people go for years or even a lifetime avoiding their feared situations rather than exposing themselves to these situations. The reason is that there are obstacles people face which stand in the way of their benefitting from desensitization. In the next section, I will discuss these obstacles and how systematic desensitization can help to overcome them.
How systematic desensitization can help you overcome obstacles to facing your fears
On the face of it, exposing yourself to your feared situations to achieve desensitization may appear to be a difficult or even impossible task. That is, when you first expose yourself to these situations you will likely experience a strong anxiety response. In fact, the response may be so strong that you avoid these situations, thereby not allowing desensitization through exposure to occur. So you may feel like you’re caught in a ‘Catch-22’: You know that if you expose yourself to your feared situations your anxiety will eventually decrease but you’re too anxious to expose yourself to those situations! Fortunately, there is a way out of this apparent ‘stuck’ place—using systematic desensitization. This means that you can gradually expose yourself to your feared situation in small steps.
You start by entering situations which are similar to your feared situation but which cause levels of anxiety which you can manage. That is, the anxiety is not so overwhelming that you would feel the need to avoid the situations. Once you feel confident in these situations, you can continue to enter situations which are increasingly similar to your feared situation, gaining further exposure and managing your anxiety at each step. Eventually you should be able to expose yourself to the situation you had feared initially. That is, gradual exposure through systematic desensitization will allow you to remain in this feared situation without experiencing levels of anxiety which you find overwhelming.
As I mentioned earlier, please note that you can also use systematic desensitization by visualizing yourself being in your feared situations. This can help you speed up your progress by not always having to take the time to actually enter your feared situations—although ultimately it is in your interest to do this ‘in-vivo exposure’ at some point.
Apply coping skills during systematic desensitization for the best results
Applying cognitive and behavioural skills while you gradually expose yourself to your feared situations will help you achieve maximum benefits from systematic desensitization. For example, if you are afraid to drive on high-speed roads, you could begin by driving on low-speed roads and work your way up in small steps until you can manage the anxiety associated with driving on high-speed roads. At each step, using cognitive skills like balanced thinking and behavioural skills such as relaxed breathing will help you manage your anxiety so that you can stay in the situation long enough for desensitization to occur. You may find it helpful to work with a psychologist who can help you apply these skills during your use of systematic desensitization.
May you systematically overcome your fears,
-Dr. Pat
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