Graduated Exposure Practice
works on 3 levels
1. GRADUAL ‘DESENSITISATION’.
The more you face a fear (GRADUALLY and with understanding and coping skills) the more you ‘get used to it’.
If you watched a scary movie a hundred times it would lose its power to scare you..
Likewise, if you gradually and repeatedly face ‘scary’ thoughts, situations or sensations they eventually lose their power to frighten you.
2. INCREASED LEARNING
• Learning by EXPERIENCE goes deeper than theoretical learning
• Practice provides you with hard EVIDENCE about the true causes of symptoms, fear cycles and the effects of safety behaviours.
• You can PROVE the effectiveness of your new understanding and skills.
• You get PROOF that the your catastrophic predictions DON’T happen.
3. INCREASED CONFIDENCE
• By choosing to go towards panic you take CONTROL of panic.
• Regular, planned, GRADUAL exposure builds CONFIDENCE in your ability to deal with panic.