What exactly is desensitization?
As the name suggests, desensitization is a process that aims to reduce the exaggerated responses which are often a part of anxiety disorder. For example, if you have social phobia, it means your emotional response to normal interactions is exacerbated by your fears and apprehensions towards being judged.
Through desensitization, it’s usually possible to change your involuntary responses in a way that allows you to cope with those oppressive feelings. This technique will help you reduce unnecessary emotional response that provide you with nothing but discomfort, and it could be a great stepping stone towards overcoming your anxiety.
How to get started preparing your personal desensitization plan
One of the central aspects of desensitization is exposure to your fears (although in a progressive and controlled manner) so you should prepare yourself for doing so. Depending on your fears, exposure can be actual or imaginary. You should begin with imaginary exposure before proceeding to actual exposure, when applicable. For example, if you’re afraid of dogs you should begin by imagining being exposed to a dog before you consider actually doing so.
In other cases where actual exposure may not be possible or practical (if you’re anxious about having panic attacks, for instance), then you will rather focus on doing imaginary exposure. In this case, the process would involve deliberately imagining catastrophic scenarios, until you realize how your reaction to these scenarios is actually more disturbing than the possibility of such thing happening.
In either case, there are four crucial steps in a proper exposure routine aimed at desensitization.
The four steps towards achieving exposure to your fears
1 – Preparation: you’re working on a plan that you can use to confront your deepest, most irrational fears. As such, preparation is the essence of it, and you shouldn’t take it lightly. You should review closely the potential discomforts you’ll have to endure, as well as the possible benefits you can get from it. You must reach a commitment to yourself that you’re serious about this plan, before you even get started.
2 – Writing down an exposure hierarchy: after you’ve spent some time (as long as it takes, be it days or weeks) preparing yourself for exposure and desensitization, it’s time to start laying out your plan. In this stage, you want to write down all the cues that make you feel anxious. You should try to be as comprehensive as possible, and list all the little and unapparent things as well as all the major, obvious things that trigger your fears and anxiety.
Your list should be as comprehensive as possible, ideally with dozens of topics. When you have this list, go through it and rate each topic on a scale from 1 (low anxiety) to 10 (extreme anxiety). Then sort the list by anxiety levels, from weakest to strongest. This will be the blueprint to your exposure / desensitization plan. After you’ve finished this list, it’s time to go from theory to practice.
3 – Initial exposure: When you have fleshed out a list with your anxiety cues and an exposure hierarchy, it’s time to get started exposing yourself to these cues. You will start with the topics you rated lowest on your anxiety scale, of course. You just need to make sure you’re fully engaging each cue you’ve previously listed, and remember, you are supposed to experience some discomfort at first. If you experience that, it’s working as planned.
Your ideal goal should be managing exposure to each cue for at least one hour, although you shouldn’t berate yourself if by some reason you end up yielding to the fears and cutting your exposure short.
Also, remember there’s no reason why you must do exposure by yourself, unless you feel you really have to. To begin with, you can (and should) ask for the company and support of a good and trusted friend or family member, since that will make the process a little less daunting and overwhelming, especially if you’re afraid of losing control of your emotions. Remember, you want to push yourself out of your comfort zone but not as far as to lose control.
4 – Repeated exposure: If you really want to conquer your fears, you have to get into the habit of doing something every day that scares you. After you’ve conquered a new level in your list of topics (by successfully being exposed to the cues in said level for at least one hour), you want to keep doing that whenever possible, ideally on a daily basis. As you do so, you’ll grow desensitized to your fears, and it will become progressively easier.
Can you try desensitization by yourself?
The process of desensitization is often one of the main tools psychologists use while treating anxiety disorders. While it’s something that will usually work better provided the assistance and support of a specialist, you should learn how it’s done and try using it whenever possible, and as far as your comfort levels allow.
This page covers the basics of what you need to know before you can succeed desensitizing yourself from your greatest fears. Keep in mind that desensitization implies exposure to your fears but in a controlled and progressive fashion. When done right, you won’t necessarily experience much discomfort nor will you have to force yourself to “just deal with” those irrational fears.
In fact, we believe that for best results you should try to keep yourself ahead of your comfort zone, but not as far away as you lose your sense of balance.
