About Treatment

[eah105]

I've been seeing a psychologist for about two months for anxiety and depression, and the question about phobias came up a while back. I told her about my emetophobia, and we are just now in the process of starting treatment on it. I had to list everything that applied to my phobia: locations that make me nervous, movies, situations, sounds, smells, etc. Anyway, then I had to list them categories of low, medium, and high. Well, all of the lows are pretty much hit or miss types of situations, and I go through those everyday, but the likelihood of seeing/hearing/smelling someone getting sick is slim to none. So I agreed that we could jump up to the mediums for some exposure therapy.So my therapist wants me to listen to the sounds of peoplegetting sick, over and over, for about 2 hours a day! I don't think I can do it! I need some advice on how to slowly bring myself to do it, and I don't think adjusting the volume from low to high is going to make it any better. HELP!!!

[japa]

Do you have to go straight into two hours? Can't you start with five minutes per day and then work your way up to two hours veeeeerrrryyyyy slooooooowlyyyyyy. ?

[sage]

Please go to the treatments thread and click on the sticky link at the very top entitled INFO TO GIVE YOUR DR. OR FAMILY. Give it to your therapist to read. Also read it yourself. It will give her (and you) some better ideas about how to structure the exposure therapy in a more sane way.


I found throughout the years that I was not able to make a proper hierarchy of fears (the list you made). Once I finally figured it out, got cured, and became a therapist myself I think I have a pretty good idea. But read the paper and then let me know what you think.

[Jenneh]

surely ur therapist shud be with yo when u listen to these noises.... (wgere r u going to get them from, by the way?)


i';m just starting exposure therapy with my community psychiatric nurse and we're going to be looking at videos, only we'll only be doing it when he is prsent so that when the panic comes he will help me deal with it and i won't end up making things worse for myself....


tell ur therapist ur not up to doing that, if ur not..... no point in lying he needs to know how bad this phobia is.


Jen xxx

[eah105]

Well, during my last session with my therapist, we kind of discussed what I thought I could handle, in terms of exposure therapy. I said that I would try to listen to the noises, but I didn't know she was going to suggest 2 hours a day! I was going to have my boyfriend download some sounds off the Internet and burn them to a cd, so that I could just hit replay and listen to the same one over and over until I was "desensitized" to it. Unfortunately, none of the sounds he found were downloadable to any drive. You could only play them outloud from your computer. So what are the chances that I'm actually gonna sit down in front of our computer and do that myself??? Yeah, slim to none. I have another appointment on Wednesday, and it's been 2 weeks since my last, but I haven't done ANY exposures at all this whole time! So I kind of want to reschedule because I don't want to come back after two weeks with nothing to show for it. Anyways, I did go to the treaments link that you offer on this website, but I didn't look or listen to anything. I'm assuming, however, (this site being dedicated for what it is) that the treatments offered from this site are gradual, so I won't be jumping into anything if I start there. So that's what I plan to do. I'll start with this website.

[sage]

Yes, the exposure link on this treatments thread is excellent. It begins with just a picture of some eggs with funny faces drawn on them. One egg is broken open where the mouth is drawn, and the yolk is coming out. The other eggs are pointing and laughing. It's actually quite cute. From there, it goes to someone just looking a bit pale...then onto someone with their head in a bag...then spitting into a bowl...etc. Sometimes the pictures are small, or black-and-white...then they move to larger and colour.


Begin with just the eggs, then report to your therapist what that was like. don't cancel your appointment. There's always something to talk about.


All the best to you!

[eah105]

Hey Sage, I decided to go ahead and take a look at that treatments page you put together. I started with the pictures, like you suggested, and guess what? I have looked at them all! It wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. I'm a long ways from cured, but I know what I can tolerate now, and I can move forward. You know what's funny? A week or so ago, my boyfriend (who tries to help me with this in his own, mostly non-helpful ways, bless his heart) asked me to sit down at the computer next to him. He said, listen to this song. He sat on top of me so I couldn't move, and played that Bloodhound gang coughing song, which I just saw is on your website!! I could have killed him for doing that, since I didn't know what it was, but he is going to laugh when I tell him I saw it on this website! He'll say, see! I knew that would be some good therapy for you! (He thinks he is able to fix ANYTHING) Anyways, thanks for putting that all together; the black & white photos are actually very helpful - more than I thought. You wouldn't think they would make a difference, but they are very much less invasive.