CBT Hierarchy question

[Cake]

Hi,

I have started to receive treatment for my emetophobia after suffering from it for many years. I'm doing CBT using exposure hierarchy as the method of treatment. I'm wondering if I can hear feedback from people who have had success with this, and if you could tell me what exposures you used during your therapy?

Thanks!

[andee]

Hi, I did exposure therapy and it did help, but I did not complete it because it got too difficult. I went as far as he would take me, like to the cliff, haha, and then I said Nope!! Anyway, we started with me just getting comfortable saying the words over and over again. Then we looked at the word, looked at pictures of gradual "graphicness" and finally at different videos, from mild to more intense. My therapist also simulated v* in the bathroom and had me watch!!! That was not fun, but I learned to handle it the few times he did it. So it does help, but for me we went as far as we could, and I just couldn't picture myself or anyone else doing it in front of me for real.
It's definitely intense, try your best to stick with it. I wish you the best of luck!!

[AZCH]

Hi! Congrats on starting therapy to work on this! I've also done a mixture of CBT/exposure therapy and yes, it definitely helped! I think the steps that Andee mentioned were pretty much exactly what I did, except that I also watched videos of animals v* before people. I am now focused on the last phase of therapy, which is becoming OK with myself v*. (this is tough for me). What I would recommend is that it takes a lot of commitment and work on your own, several times a week. I would work on the steps 3-5 times a week for about an hour each time. If you don't do it consistently or only sporadically you might not get the results you hope for. I would also recommend only doing steps that lead to a mild/med amount of anxiety (if you are nearing panic, you need to do something less anxiety-inducing) and only go on to the next step when you pretty much get zero anxiety at that step. Hope that helps, but please know if you are committed and take the time to work on it, it WILL help! Good luck!