Exposure Therapy

Exposure Therapy is a form of therapy that is used to treat irrational fears and phobias with gradual and increasing exposure to the feared object. For instance, if a client has a phobia of cats, the therapist might start treatment with showing the client a picture of a cat. When he/she can look at a picture of a cat without feeling anxiety, the therapist may add listening to the sounds a cat makes; meowing and purring, later on the therapy moves on to seeing a live cat from a distance and moves eventually to touching a cat. Through this gradual desensitization process, the client can eventually get over their fears.