Stress and anxiety: Systematic Desensitization Technique

With systematic desensitization a person can learn to cope with objects and situations that are particularly threatening, exposing oneself in a real or imaginary way to the stimuli that produce a response anxious. In PsicologíaOnline, we believe it is necessary to write about the applications on the Anxiety and stress of the Systematic Desensitization Technique.

It is about learning to relax while imagining scenes that progressively cause more anxiety. "The repeated presentation of the stimulus causes it to progressively lose its ability to evoke anxiety and consequently physical, emotional or cognitive discomfort" The technique is very effective to combat classic phobias, chronic fears, some interpersonal anxiety reactions ...

It's fundamental real or imaginary exposure to stimuli that produce anxious emotions and the more times the better. It is a matter of never avoiding, of confronting but armed with resources that were not available before but that can be learned. That is why it is very important to repeat, repeat and repeat. Carrying out systematic and progressive approaches (

We can do it reviewing with the imagination the exposure to the stimulus that generates anxiety (eg. how to respond to a situation or thought before which we feel out of control or with great psychological or physiological discomfort) and after mastering the situation with imagination (seeing ourselves for example. ourselves responding in a controlled way and in a much more positive and adaptive way), later, to practice with direct exposure. It is about undoing anxiety-provoking conditioning and learning more positive and adaptive ones. This works for any situation that can cause us anxiety.

The steps are:

1. Relax muscles at will (differential or progressive relaxation).
2. Make a list with all the fears or anxiety situations.
3. Build a hierarchy of anxiety scenes from less to greater intensity of anxiety.
4. Move along, through imagination or through confrontation, with the dreaded hierarchy situations. It is important that visualization is practiced so that the situation is experienced as very real. You will not move to a new anxiety situation until you have achieved that the previous situation in the hierarchy is completely resolved in terms of the anxiety experienced.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.