Exposure in vivo
Step by step, you confront anxiety-provoking situations in real life. Anxiety decreases as you learn it won't lead to catastrophe.
What is Exposure in vivo?
In vivo exposure means practising with real, anxiety-provoking situations, not imagined ones. It's the gold standard treatment for phobias and anxiety disorders.
By repeatedly staying in the feared situation without fleeing, your nervous system learns that the feared outcome doesn't occur and the anxiety is bearable. Anxiety naturally reduces through habituation.
How does it work?
Hierarchy building
Together you build a step-by-step hierarchy from least to most feared situations. You start at the bottom and work your way up gradually.
Avoidance maintains anxiety
By staying in the feared situation and discovering that nothing terrible happens, you build new learning that overrides the fear response.
What can you expect?
You identify all the situations you avoid and rate them on a fear scale from 0 to 100.
Together you create a hierarchy of exposures from easy to most challenging.
You begin with lower-level exposures, staying until anxiety reduces naturally.
As lower steps become easier, you move up the hierarchy.
You generalise learning to new situations and develop a plan for the future.
Suitable for
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Book an intake session with a provider who specialises in this approach. Together you'll look at what fits best for your situation.
Source: Powers & Emmelkamp (2008), Behaviour Research and Therapy