Phobia treatment. How to get rid of a phobia?
The problem of phobia treatment is particularly important today taking into account the modern way of life with its constant and interminable stressful circumstances and fears.
The human being is born fearless. The small child is not afraid to touch the fire, to stumble and to fall. All these fears come later. Together with useful fears frequently come useless ones. When they become too strong, they are called phobias.
The phobia is an acquired, “learnt” fear. It is very important to understand this reality. In fact, if the person can “learn to be afraid”, then he or she can as well “learn to be unafraid”.
The so-called “systematic desensitization” is based on this principle. It is an effective method of phobia treatment created by the South African scientist Joseph Volpe.
The word “desensitization” comes from Latin “sensibilis” meaning sensually perceived. The term “desensitization” is used in medicine in the treatment of allergies. In the latter case under the term “desensitization” is meant the reduction of the sensitivity of an organism by systematic application of the provoking substance starting with the least dozes.
In a way, the fear is similar to allergy. In case of allergy the “usual” substance, such as strawberry, chocolate, oranges, causes “unusual” reaction in the form of a rash and itching. In case of phobia the “usual” situation causes “unusual” phobic reaction. The attempt of Joseph Volpe to use the principles of allergy treatment for phobia therapy proved to be successful.
Systematic desensitization became the first really effective method for the treatment of phobias. The efficiency of this method has been substantiated by numerous scientific researches for phobia therapy.
Desensitization is considered to be the best method for phobia treatment. The efficiency of this method does not depend neither on intensity of anxiety, nor on its duration, or whether the phobia has been acquired suddenly or gradually.
The fear, anxiety, phobia are inseparably related to the tension. If there is no tension, there cannot be any kinds of phobia. In other words, if the person can relax in phobic situations, the phobia will disappear.
So as to learn how to remain calm in the situations when there are causes of anxiety, it is necessary to pass three stages consistently:
1. To train in the relaxation;
2. To construct the hierarchy of stimuli causing fear;
3. To generate the reaction of relaxation instead of the reaction of fear.
The first stage is the training for the relaxation. At the end of training the patient is capable to get relaxed for 20-30 seconds to the same degree as with a tablet of tranquilizer. The difference is in the fact that the medicine starts working in 30 minutes and causes drowsiness and slackness; the relaxation, however, brings effect in a half of a minute and is not accompanied by undesirable side effects.
At the second stage the so-called “Hierarchy of fears” is made. In the beginning of the list is the situation or a subject, causing the least fear; at the end of the list is the greatest cause, with intermediate 8-15 situations between these limits. If there are several phobias, the hierarchy is made separately for each group.
At the third stage doctor and patient perform the association of the representations causing fear with the relaxation. The patient, being in a condition of a deep relaxation, produces the representations about the situations resulting in the occurrence of fear and then with the help of relaxation removes the arising anxiety.
The relaxation is incompatible with the fear and anxiety because they are associated with tension, and the relaxation is a condition opposite to tension. For this reason, the collision with stimuli causing anxiety in the condition of the relaxation deprives these stimuli of the ability to cause fear.