Question

When Gary found out that his new job required some air travel, he sought the help of a clinical psychologist to deal with his intense fear of flying. The clinical psychologist suggested using a procedure called systematic desensitization. As the first step in the process of systematic desensitization, the clinical psychologist:____________.

Answer 1

Answer:

(D) trained Gary in a technique called progressive relaxation.

Explanation:

This question is missing the options. The options for this question are:

(A) explored Gary's past for possible clues as to why Gary was afraid of flying

(B) actively confronted the irrationality of Gary's fear of flying

(C) instructed Gary to visualize being on an airplane that developed engine trouble had to make an emergency crash landing.

(D) trained Gary in a technique called progressive relaxation

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:

1. The patient is taught deep relaxation and breathing exercises.
2. 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.  
3. 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.

In this example, Gary found out that his job requires air travel and he's afraid to fly. His psychologist will use systematic desensitization, therefore, the first step will have to do with teaching Gary deep relaxation techniques and breathing exercises, this technique is called progressive relaxation. Therefore, the correct answer will be d. trained Gary in a technique called progressive relaxation