1. Relaxing Your Fears Away By Adam Schultz

2. ●Joseph Wolpe ● Systematic Desensitization ● Not the first to invent, but first to perfect Who:

3. ● Wolpe noticed that fear reactions could be reduced when conditioned with food ● Conditioning with fear did not work because feeding and fear were incompatible responses ● Reciprocal Inhibition- when two responses inhibit each other; only one may exist at a given moment. Hypotheses: With people, he used the two responses: ●Fear from phobias ●Relaxation

4. ● Treated 39 cases of 68 phobias ● Put subjects in deep relaxation through therapeutic training sessions and sometimes hypnosis ● “Desensitized” subjects by leading them through a step by step hierarchy of their fears, hoping to allow the subjects to confront and eradicate the phobias Method:

5. ● Out of 68 phobias treated, 62 reported either completely successful or partially successful in freedom from phobic reactions ● 9% that were considered unsuccessful were presumed to not be willing or able to imagine the situations presented in the hierarchy ● The average number of therapy sessions was 12.3 Results:

6. ● Skepticism about how this method is a lot like Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to behavior Critiques:

7. ● College students with phobia of public speaking put in three categories o Syst. Desen. o Insight Therapy o No Treatment Subsequent Research:

8. ● Based on findings, Wolpe’s method of systematic desensitization has been proven to be the most successful treatment of anxiety disorders to date. Historical Significance: