Exposure Therapy in Oakland, CA (Bay Area)
Exposure therapy is an evidenced-based treatment for anxiety. It involves working together to help you confront situations that you fear and avoid. Although avoidance may reduce feelings of fear in the short term, it exacerbates fear in the long term. The goal of exposure therapy is to practice experiencing a tolerable level of emotional and physiological discomfort while staying mindfully present. This enables you to learn that the fear you have developed is disproportionate to the situation and that you can trust yourself to effectively manage your anxiety. As you build confidence, you can overcome avoidance and live your life more fully. Exposure therapy is a collaborative and supportive process.
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Exposure therapy for anxiety, phobias, and more.
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Exposure therapy has been scientifically demonstrated to be a successful treatment, or treatment component, for a range of problems, including phobias, panic attacks, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety.
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The Therepeutic Process for Exposure Therapy (and ERP Therapy)
Initial Evaluation for Exposure Therapy
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Sessions 1 - 3
The first few sessions will focus on education and assessment. During this period I will ask about the details of your specific phobia(s) or in order to help you identify the thoughts, physiological sensations, emotions, and behaviors that are reinforcing the cycle of fear. You will learn about your brain’s fear response (commonly called Fight or Flight) and how Exposure Therapy works to retrain your brain. The frequency of sessions during this phase of treatment ranges from 1-2 times per week, depending on availability and how quickly you want to move on to treatment planning.
Sessions 3 - 5
The next several sessions will focus on creating a treatment plan. The length of this phase of treatment depends on several factors including the number of phobias you want to address, your personal history and the complexity of how your phobia(s) are impacting your life, and whether other mental health issues need to be addressed prior to beginning exposure therapy. The frequency of sessions during this phase of treatment ranges from 1-2 times per week depending on availability and how quickly you want to move on to exposure sessions.
Additional Sessions of Exposure Therapy
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After the initial phase of education, assessment, and treatment planning, we will then shift to doing the exposure sessions. We will first do exposure tasks together in session so that I can guide you and give you feedback in real time. Once you have the hang of it, you will also do exposure tasks on your own for homework between sessions. The frequency of sessions during this phase of treatment ranges from 1-3 times per week, depending on the level of support you would like when doing exposure tasks (although we will gradually work towards you doing them independently).
Sessions during this phase of treatment are often longer than a usual 50 minute therapy session because we will meet to do exposures "in-vivo" (e.g., driving together on freeways or bridges, visiting the airport etc.). This phase of treatment can last anywhere from 4 sessions to 16 sessions (on average) depending on the issues you want to address, your motivation, and availability.