Chapter 14 - Progressive Exposure Flashcards
Progressive Exposure: The solution to Panic and Phobias
EXPOSURE means: Practicing with panic.
PROGRESSIVE means: Doing it a step at a time, at a pace that is acceptable to you. You can go as slow as you need to or as fast as you’re willing to.
To practice with panic, you need to create the right circumstances - the situations, activities, locations, and cues that usually provoke a panic attack in you.
If you tend to panic while driving on highways, your exposure program will emphasize highway driving. Ditto for shopping malls, elevators, supermarkets lines, meetings, and so on.
You need to be aware of the subtle details that influence your fear and build them into your practice. For instance, if you panic on highways while driving in the middle lane, but not on the right lane where proximity to the shoulder offers comfort, you’ll need to… you guessed it… practice driving in the middle lane.
OVer time, You’ll have to account for all the self-protective methods you listed in Chapter 5. If necessary, you can phase them out gradually instead of dropping them all at once, but they have to go - and the sooner, the better.
People often mistakenly think that exposure means going to the feared situation and striving not to panic. But that’s not exposure, that’s struggling to protect yourself from the panic - fighting the panic - and it will cause you more trouble in the long run.
The goal of a progressive exposure is not simply to expose yourself to the highways, or the shopping malls ,elevators, grocery stores, or parties. That’s only a means to an end. What you fear about those places isn’t the place itself.
PEOPLE AVOID THOSE SITUATIONS BECAUSE THEY THINK THAT BEING IN THE SITUATION WILL SOMEHOW LEAD TO A PANIC ATTACK.
They try to protect themselves by avoiding the situation or only going there when they feel “protected” by a support person or object, a superstitious rule, or some other protective device.
Your efforts to protect yourself from the panic are what allow your troubles to continue.
THE GOAL OF EXPOSURE IS TO BRING ON A PANIC ATTACK SO THAT YOU CAL PRACTICE RESPONDING IN A MORE COMFORTABLE MANNER.
When doing exposure, you go to places where your presence is likely to lead to a panic attack. When the attack comes, you can practice working with it in a way that calms it down instead of building it up.
By exposing yourself to the fear and practicing with it, rather than protecting yourself from it, you can desensitize yourself. This powerful recovery method will lead you to become less and less afraid of having a panic attack. Once you’re no longer afraid of panic attacks, they tend to fade away.
** LEARNING HOW TO GET HIT **
** Practicing with Panic **
Each time you find yourself tempted to act in old, avoidant, self-protective ways, remember that those are tehw ays that have maintained your troubles.
