When we’re feeling anxious about something, it’s natural to want to avoid it, but avoidance is one of the worse things we can do for anxiety, and the more we avoid something, the more anxious it tends to make us. The opposite of avoidance is exposure, and one of the keys to reducing anxiety is to exposure ourselves to the things that cause us anxiety, through a gradual and controlled process called Graded Exposure or Systematic Desensitization.
Watch the videos below to learn why avoidance increases our anxiety and how we can use graded exposure or systematic desensitization to lower our anxiety.
Reducing Anxiety and Avoidance with Exposure
Anxiety, Systematic Desensitization and Graded Exposure
For more videos like these, please subscribe to my YouTube Channel and follow @GregDorter on Twitter.
I’m a therapist in Guelph, Ontario specializing in evidence-based treatments such as CBT and mindfulness for anxiety, depression and stress. For more information about cognitive therapy/cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression in Guelph, or to make an appointment for counselling or therapy, please call me at 226-500-4086 or email greg@guelphtherapist.ca.
