Today’s post is about important reflections to be made before and after an exposure. Important strategies to handle possible strong reactions during exposure are: – Regulate stress-level through mindful breathing and relaxation techniques, see earlier posts under stress on www.jennyrapp.com – Feel the feelings: which feelings, how strong, where do you feel the feeling in…
Exposure therapy has for many decades been one of CBT’s most powerful and effective methods to help clients, who limits their life by avoiding objects, activities and situations they fear, to confront their fears. The foundational reasoning is that the normal human tendency/learning strategy of avoiding what is feared can reduce fear in the short…
Exposure is the main technique to constructively handle fears, i.e. with the aim to living the life you would like and not avoiding doing the things you would like to be able to do. There is research showing that the brain never erases things or situations that it has been afraid of, but instead keeps…
Here comes more details about how to make an exposure to overcome fears and avoidance behaviors. On Saturday, about the feeling fear, I will post important dimensions to consider before and after making an exposure. Remember: if you feel fragile or concerned, then these kinds of exercises are best done together with a licensed and…
Here comes the third part of the breathing anchor, an exercise using the breath as an anchoring point since our breath is always with us and hence can be used to anchor us in the present moment. This is a seated exercise of in total 5-10 minutes depending on pauses/pace: … Breathe in and breathe…
As mentioned in the last post, fear is a powerful, primitive and lifesaving emotion. Fear makes us aware of danger and entails important learning mechanisms. We avoid things we fear based on what we have been through and experienced. Phobias entails having an avoidant behaviour toward specific situations and items. Usually phobias are developed towards…
This post continues on what to do during the worry hour, more specifically what to do with unproductive themes/topics, see earlier posts. You can choose among several strategies: 1. If stressed, calm yourself by pointing out that the thoughts are likely consequences of stress and hence see the worry-theme as a mainly stress symptoms and…
Here comes the second part of the breathing anchor. The name comes from using the breath as an anchoring point since our breathing is always with us and hence we can use it to anchor us in the present moment. This is a seated exercise, in this version in total 5 minutes: Follow a breath…
Imagine giving a speech here? Do not worry if your stomach cringes, giving a speech is one of the things the majority of people fear the most. Fear is an extremely important feeling since it has a huge survival value. It makes us instantly react to perceived threats by avoiding the danger and instead seeking…
This post continues on what to do during the worry hour, more specifically what to do after identifying which of your worry-themes are productive and/or unproductive, se definitions introduced in earlier posts. After identifying and analysing your unproductive/unhelpful thoughts/themes according to earlier posts, you can choose among several strategies. Here comes exposure, a favourite within…