““ Exposure Therapy Exposure therapy, also known as desensitization, works best with very specific anxieties and phobias. For example, Jessica is deathly afraid of spiders. With the guidance of her therapist, she started exposure therapy by simply thinking about spiders. After she felt comfortable with that, she looked at pictures of various spiders and read about them. Next, she sat in a room with a spider. Gradually, the spider got closer and closer to her. With time, Jessica was able to let the spider crawl over her hand without being afraid. Gradually, she overcame her fear of spiders. This type of therapy is most useful with specific social anxieties. Someone afraid of shopping could slowly work from walking into a store, to browsing, to trying clothes on, to making small talk with clerks, to buying something he or she likes. Someone afraid of writing in public could begin with small tasks such as signing a credit card receipt. In exposure therapy, your therapist will have you spend as much time doing each step as it takes to feel comfortable with the action. At the same time, you will practice relaxation techniques. To be successful, you need to be able to be exposed to the event repeatedly without feeling anxiety. Exposure therapy is less useful for generalized social anxiety. It is difficult to set up predictable scenarios for so many different situations. However, if you have generalized social anxiety and there is a particular area on which you want to focus, exposure therapy may be useful. When trying exposure therapy, make sure not to use avoidance techniques to get through the task, such as “acting” in an appropriate way but feeling false, or going to a social event but not speaking with anyone new. Although it is better than nothing, simply getting through the activity will not give you the full benefit of desensitization.””
