I know I asked something similar awhile back, but I'm still stuck on this. When I've read about others' stories about treatment in the past, I was under the impression that you would work on the CBT and desensitization/exposure therapy in the sessions one on one with your therapist. Maybe they would carry over into the week as "homework", but you would be guided along the way by your therapist, giving you a specific plan and overseeing it. I'm just not getting this with my therapist. The sessions are all talk - which is interesting, but it's not going to change me. And the desensitization is all my homework, with little guidance of what to do and how to do it. If this is how it's going to be, I'm not sure why I'm seeing a therapist at all. My problem is i haven't been able to bring myself to do the desensitization on my own, which is why I sought out therapy in the first place, for some structure and guidance - a plan that's not led by me. This is my second therapist since the summer, and I chose him because he specializes in fears, phobias and anxiety, and he mentioned he has worked with emets in the past. Is my perception of the way therapy is supposed to go incorrect? is it normal that it be all talk, and you do the "hard stuff" as homework?

My other issue is I know it is always said that you don't have to make yourself get sick in order to get better - that it may make it worse (which has been my experience when I've actually been sick in the past). But some days I'm so frustrated and fed up about being trapped by this fear, that I think if I could just make myself v* everyday, then I'd eventually learn to not be scared of it. Maybe that's the one surefire way to not let it control me, and let me be in control of it. when it came down to it, i don't know that i could actually do it. I shared this with my therapist who seemed to initially agree that v*ing isn't necessary to get better, and he seemed to understand why getting sick doesn't make people get over the fear. But when I told him how fed up I am living like this and being controlled by this and how I wondered if this would be the thing that would actually cure me, he said he thinks that it would. That we'd start slow, without food, with just liquids, then with food. working your way up to several times a week. Actually thinking about what he's describing sounds crazy to me. And I know it's nothing he would force me into. But my biggest fears with it are what if it made me worse, spiraled out of control, what if I couldn't stop, what if it unleashed some v* reflex it me where I wouldn't be able to stop or I'd be more susceptible to v* illnesses, when I'd always been able to hold back in the past? He assures me it wouldn't because I'd be in control, and it would be over a span of time and not just once. I'm finding myself not trusting him - how can he KNOW! But then what if he is right? what if I could actually be rid of this?

As of now, I'm not seriously planning this out. But it's one of those things in the back of my mind, as a last resort, that if normal therapy/CBT/desensitization/a MIRACLE does not work, maybe there is a way? I'm not sure it's worth the risk. If I was 100% certain it would work, then maybe MAYBE I'd eventually consider it some day.

For those of you that have been successful in therapy, does it make sense to you that this could work? Or is it a very dangerous and completely unnecessary approach, and maybe I should be wary of my psychologist now?