Answer:
d. Training to relax when confronted with anxiety-arousing stimuli
Explanation:
Systematic desensitization is a type of technique used in cognitive therapy and it is based on the principle of classical conditioning.
The goal of this technique is to remove a phobia or a stimuli that causes anxiety and substitute it with a relaxation response.
This technique has three phases:
- The patient is taught deep relaxation and breathing exercises.
- The patient creates a fear hierarchy starting at stimuli that provoke the least anxiety and building up to the most fear provoking ones.
- The patient starts at the bottom of the hierarchy with the least unpleasant stimuli and practices the relaxation technique.
The patient practices this relaxation until the stimuli doesn't provoke any anxiety and then he continues with the next stimuli in the hierarchy until he reaches the top stimuli and the anxiety is removed.
Therefore, we can say that relaxation when confronted with anxiety-arousing stimuli is a really important part of systematic desensitization. Therefore, the correct answer is d. Training to relax when confronted with anxiety-arousing stimuli
