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Exposure therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioural therapy that is commonly used to treat anxiety disorders, including phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The goal of exposure therapy is to help individuals confront the situations or objects that trigger their anxiety or fear, in a safe and controlled environment, to reduce the intensity of their fear response over time.Â
Exposure therapy generally begins with the sufferer creating an anxiety scale of 1 - 100. Each scale is unique to the individual. Throughout the scale, specific things pertaining to the sufferers 'issue' (OCD, phobia, anxiety disorder, etc.) are noted down, with the smaller numbers connecting to the less concerning things, and the larger numbers relating to the most problematic situations presented within the mental condition.
For example, John has a phobia of spiders. His scale looks like this:
01 - 10: Listening to conversations about spiders.
10 - 20: Looking at pictures of spiders
40: Watching a documentary on spiders
70: Watching a spider through a window
80: Being in the same room as a spider
100: Touching a spider
Exposure therapy works its way up the scale: introducing sufferers to situations at the bottom of the scale, and using breathing techniques to help them deal with the negative emotions this brings up. Repetitive exposure will eventually minimalise the negative emotions the situation is able to bring up.
Results: Does It Work? (Exposure Therapy)
Results: Does It Work? (Exposure Therapy)
Enlightened took a group of people to Rainbows End on Monday the 11th of September. Armed with advice from a professional psychologist, and the support of a local guidance counsellor, our team developed a program that could be conducted at the theme park. The program utilised the rides to test fear of heights and anxiety: exposing individuals to rides that may cause such feelings of upset and unrest. Furthermore, the program combined outside exposure and physical activity together to try and assist the dopamine relase for a participant struggling with depression. The participants completed a 'speed trial' of exposure therapy: where they exposed themselves to varying degrees of anxiety inducing rides multiple times, to record how this affected their anxiety before, during and after the exposure. The results were generically successful: with the second attempt at any given exposure averaging out to a lower anxiety level than the first attempt. This attests to the effectiveness of exposure therapy: and can only hint at the benefits of a long-term program.
More information on the benefits of Rainbows End for mental health and exposure therapy. Please contact us through our Instagram if you would like to learn more.
Exposure therapy results:
Exposure therapy results:
When looking at the graphs to the right, it is important to understand what you are looking for. During exposure therapy, the anxiety is usually heightened prior to the exposure, peaks during the exposure, and lessens after the exposure. The most important statistic, however, is the second round's data. This is how you measure the success of the exposure: if the peak on the second round is smaller than the peak on the first round. When observing these graphs, we can see that the second graph has a lot less anxiety than the first graph: which suggests that the exposure is working. Afterall, the focus of exposure therapy is to expose an individual to the source of their anxiety in a way they cannot access any of their comfort behaviours: so they are forced to slowly understand that the severity of their anxiety is unwarranted. To simplify this information, below is a graph that compares the averages of the anxiety before, during and after rides: both the first and second rounds.
Please note: This should be done under the guidance of a TRAINED PROFESSIONAL
Please note: This should be done under the guidance of a TRAINED PROFESSIONAL
If you think Exposure Therapy is right for you, please reach out to your local GP (General Practicioner/Docter) to see how they can help you get a referral to a councellor or psychologist.
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