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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    122

    Default Anyone else have trouble with making a hierachy for CBT?

    I am going to CBT for about 16 sessions. My therapist said that we are going to start exposing me to vomit. She asked what i find most scary and what i find least scary and to build a hierachy from bottom to top. This is SO hard because i dont really know what scares me most apart from loosing control and actually vomiting! I want to treat my anxiety as i know emetophobia is just a symptom and my anxiety could of latched onto anything. The thing that troubles me is that when i was younger i couldn't watch anyone vomit. I wouldput my fingers in my ears etc. If I saw it on the telly i would be traumatized by it for days... couldn't stop thinking about it.But as i have got old i've kinda exposed myself so much because all my friends have been drunk and sick LOADS that i no longer fear it? Well i don't think i do... i couldn't stand watching someone vomit RIGHT NEXT TO ME but could anyone?

    I just don't know what to dooooooooooo
    Have i made my phobia worse by exposing myself? or have i made it better? or is my anxiety just hiding

    i don't understand
    she says she is going to bring in pictures nexct week but surely that is WAY too scary to start with? but i dont find pictures scary.. i dont think


    please help
    i dont understand

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,135

    Default Re: Anyone else have trouble with making a hierachy for CBT?

    So if you don't find pictures scary that's near the bottom. If you don't find them scary, then it's not too scary!!! This therapy is all about YOU. We can't do it for you! But remember, if it's things you do/ don't do that scare you include them. Like some people would be anxious wearing clothes they last wore when they v'ed. Or some people can't sit in the middle of a restaurant. Whatever you do to relieve your anxuety, put it on. Put them in order according to how anxious it would make you to do them.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    In Recovery
    Posts
    622

    Default Re: Anyone else have trouble with making a hierachy for CBT?

    Write down every situation with vomit that scares you. Don't worry about order to start with. So for example:

    - me vomiting
    - others vomiting
    - movies with vomiting scenes
    - restaurantes in case I get food poisoning
    - chicken - I don't eat any for fear of getting salmonella

    These are just examples.

    So then you look at that list and write down which scares you the least and what scares you most. So for example it might look like this: Movies with vomit scare me least, me vomiting scares me most. Okay so now you have your least scary thing and your most scary thing. Now put the rest in order in between those two. What scares you a little more than movies, and then a little more than that. Etc etc until you have your hierarchy list.

    Does that make sense?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Posts
    108

    Default Re: Anyone else have trouble with making a hierachy for CBT?

    Yes, although the pictures may not bother you, you need to be realistic. Does the words Vomit, sick etc even cause a little bit of a jumpy heart? If so then thats where it needs to start.

    I have recently had to list mine, They go roughly in this order and although I can see vomit in the street and watch it on tele (which I never used to be able to do) I have included them as the bottom ones as I have become so alerted to even the words that they cause a little bit of a reaction, in which if someones says something about sick my ears will prick up and I will be alert.
    So on a rating scale I would say about a 2 that they make me anxious, then I would put watching it on a film about a 3, although I know I can do it, it still makes me feel a bit fluttery. And then just build up from there until you are right at the top with you vomiting yourself. You could perhaps ask yourself if you would prefer to be sick without notice (ie a bug) or if it was brought on by giving you something. Whichever is worse to you would be rated as the 10 on an anxiety scale.
    Ihave included in mine, a tour of our local town centre at about midnight as I just know it will be covered in sick. Although I can look at it. I still get a nervous reaction as I have trained my brain to react to anything associated with it. Hope this helps.

 

 

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