systematic desensitization

Examples of systematic desensitization in the following topics:

• Specific Phobia

  • Systematic desensitization is a process in which patients seeking help slowly become accustomed to their phobia, and ultimately overcome it.
  • Mainly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) has been demonstrated as effective in easing phobia symptoms following a specific trauma, such as a fear of dogs following a dog bite.
  • Hypnotherapy can be used alone and in conjunction with systematic desensitization to treat phobias.

• Applications of Classical Conditioning to Human Behavior

  • Some therapies associated with classical conditioning include aversion therapy, systematic desensitization, and flooding.
  • Systematic desensitization is a treatment for phobias in which the individual is trained to relax while being exposed to progressively more anxiety-provoking stimuli.
  • Flooding is a form of desensitization that uses repeated exposure to highly distressing stimuli until the lack of reinforcement of the anxiety response causes its extinction.

• Feeding Disorders

  • Some children with ARFID benefit from a four stage in-home treatment program based on the principles of systematic desensitization.
  • The reward stage involves systematic desensitization.

• Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis

  • A popular form of exposure therapy is systematic desensitization, wherein a calm and pleasant state is gradually associated with increasing levels of anxiety-inducing stimuli.
  • Systematic desensitization has been shown to successfully treat phobias about heights, driving, and insects, as well as any anxiety that a person may have.

• Body-Oriented Psychotherapies

  • These alternative methods include (but are not limited to) eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), light therapy, hypnotherapy, and yoga.
  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy technique discovered in 1987 by Francine Shapiro for use in the treatment of anxiety, stress, and trauma.
  • Reich was the first person to bring body awareness systematically into psychoanalysis and also the first psychotherapist to touch clients physically.

• Dissociative Disorders

  • Common treatment methods include an eclectic mix of psychotherapy techniques, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), insight-oriented therapies, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), hypnotherapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).
  • General treatment guidelines suggest a phased, eclectic approach with more concrete guidance and agreement on early stage; however no systematic, empirically-supported approach exists, and later stages of treatment have no consensus.

• Chemoreceptor Regulation of Breathing

  • They can be desensitized over time from chronic hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) and increased carbon dioxide.
  • They do not desensitize, and have less of an impact on the respiratory rate compared to the central chemoreceptors.

• Bias

  • All measurements are prone to systematic errors, often of several different types.
  • Accuracy (or validity) is a measure of the systematic error.
  • If an experiment is accurate or valid, then the systematic error is very small.
  • In this case, there is more random error than systematic error.
  • In this case, there is more systematic error than random error.

• Summary

  • Matrices and graphs are compact and systematic: They summarize and present a lot of information quickly and easily; and they force us to be systematic and complete in describing patterns of social relations.
  • Matrices and graphs allow us to apply computers to analyzing data: This is helpful because doing systematic analysis of social network data can be extremely tedious if the number of actors or number of types of relationships among the actors is large.

• Basic Principles of Classical Conditioning: Pavlov

  • Pavlov's research further led to the development of important behavior-therapy techniques, such as flooding and desensitizing, for individuals who struggle with fear and anxiety.
  • Desensitizing is a kind of reverse conditioning in which an individual is repeatedly exposed to the thing that is causing the anxiety.