Exposure Therapy

[Superman]

Noticing the dead horse next door finally (hopefully) buried by David, here is something new we can criticize or praise. I have a meeting in a few minutes but I have to share the topic of an article appearing in a large-circulation newspaper on November 22.

Most of us have noticed an uptick in woosyness. Many of us routinely got pats on the head when we engaged in competition but we did not always get trophies. We have become a nation of whiners, perhaps. Well....this article is called "Children Learning to Face Down Their Fears. Subtitle: "A new push to tackle the rise of anxiety through the old practice of exposure therapy."

An intriguing concept. Discuss.

[GH85Carrera]

I know when I moved out of mom and dad's house and went on the be an adult, I was exposed to the real world. Rent, utilities, and buying food was a struggle at first. I guess I had no real "fear" of going to work 5 days per week, and soon figured out shooting weddings on the weekend was a great way to make more money.

I never got a trophy until I started autocrossng in my 74 914 2.0 and had a lot of fun beating 911s of the 60s and 70s. I got beat occasionally but I soon discovered there is almost always someone out there with a better prepared car, and they were a better driver and had a bigger budget.

I never received a participation trophy. It was a different era.

[Superman]

Well I'm not sure why almost no one is commenting but I have guesses. I find this "new" old concept of Exposure Therapy so amusing because of the huge role it has played in my life. When people meet with me, and even if they are workmates for years, they often have the impression I am very calm, relaxed and unflappable. This is the surface presentation however. In reality, I am very anxious. I often feel out of breath as though I am not getting enough oxygen. Breathing is a conscious thing for me, because of anxiety. As a child, I was fearful. Frightened.

And from this, because of this, I have learned to do scary things. On purpose. I had no choice. It was either that or live a life in fear. For example: As a person who often has a feeling of being out of breath...I am learning SCUBA diving. Exposure Therapy? Story of my life.

[pwd72s]

An old thread here came to mind...a guy posting about his fear of flying. Many posts urging him to fight the fear by flying. So, he did...went up in a private aircraft. It crashed, killing him and the pilot.

Irony..

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Superman

Well I'm not sure why almost no one is commenting but I have guesses. I find this "new" old concept of Exposure Therapy so amusing because of the huge role it has played in my life. When people meet with me, and even if they are workmates for years, they often have the impression I am very calm, relaxed and unflappable. This is the surface presentation however. In reality, I am very anxious. I often feel out of breath as though I am not getting enough oxygen. Breathing is a conscious thing for me, because of anxiety. As a child, I was fearful. Frightened.

And from this, because of this, I have learned to do scary things. On purpose. I had no choice. It was either that or live a life in fear. For example: As a person who often has a feeling of being out of breath...I am learning SCUBA diving. Exposure Therapy? Story of my life.

I'm not an anxious person. I think my missus is often/usually anxious about something. I am aware, but I don't really understand it because it's not how I'm wired.
I'm also not really that conversant in exposure therapy other than very vaguely or maybe having seen it in movies or on TV.

[oldE]

One learns more from their failures than their successes.
Over supervising kids and scheduling their lives for them benefits neither them nor society

Best
Les

[Superman]

Right. Fear of heights? Go ride some Ferris Wheels until it goes away.

[fintstone]

I started walking the 8 blocks to school and home with my 9 months older brother in the first grade (I was five and he was six). I saw where a woman was arrested for letting her 8-year-old do this. Seems like a different world. My mother dropped me off downtown at 6AM in the nearest city (on her way to work) about once a week in the summer I was 10 or 11 and spent the day and then she picked me up on the way home at around 5PM on her way home. I had a dime for a pay phone if there was an emergency, but never wasted it. I waited outside for the public library to open, read all day, checked out books and met her at my drop off point. As I child, I worked with my father (hard labor) and had very specific responsibilities...where if I failed, we did not eat/have a warm place to live. I left home at 17 with nothing and built a life for myself (and my soon to be family). Big responsibility (and opportunity for failure) builds character. Whining/losing is never an option.

[varmint]

New school administrator in town. She has a serious dog phobia. An actual has sought psychiatric help dog phobia. Why she chose to move here is beyond me. This is the most dog friendly place on earth.

If she had intended this to be immersion therapy I would understand. But she seems mostly to be complaining and trying to get the rest of us to no longer bring our dogs to the coffee shop.

[flatbutt]

Forgive what may be obvious but Exposure Therapy = Face Your Fears? If so it's nothing new. It's often referred to as "manning up". Or am I just a neanderthal frozen in time?

[Superman]

You have that exactly right, FB. Not exactly a new concept.

[fintstone]

Talk to a relatively young man or woman and ask them about starting on a cross country trip in an old car or hitchhiking (without a credit card or cell phone). Just the money in their pocket. Ask them what they will do if the car breaks down in a desolated area in the middle of the night.

Then ask them about driving to a new city on the other side of the country with pocket money and the clothes they can carry and what to do when they get there (to get work/money and a place to live).

Even leaving to get on a bus to go to basic training would be a nightmare scenario to many.

[Jeff Hail]

Like learning to swim.

2- 1/2 year olds. Locked inside a giant indoor pool facility. All the parents looking through the glass at the group from the outside. No parent is coming to save them.

One by one they drop them feet first into the Olympic size pool at the edge and let them cling on to the track drains a bit. Get used to the water. No waddle wings. A couple of safety person about 3 feet away towards the middle keeping an eye out. If anything went wrong they would just pluck a kid out. They dont get out until they turn around and face the safety and then lunge at them like Jaws is pushing them, then get relayed off to another safety closer to the steps and walk it off out of the pool.

Then all the kids are lined up and are led to the diving board single file, adults strategically placed so no kid can haul butt and run. Some kids just just walked to the edge of the board & jumped into the water on own into waiting arms of a safety. Some kids just stood there freaking out. They got pushed into the water below into the arms of a safety. Everyone popped up out of the water and were pushed to the side one at a time like a system and plucked out of the water.

Some crying , some laughing with snot hanging from noses but everyone got the hang of it quickly and the routine. 30 minutes of this repitition every single kid was swimming like Spitz, laughing and with confidence could not wait to get back in the water.

They didn't need anyones approval. That was in 1966 at the Van Nuys YMCA. No fear.

[KFC911]

I have this fear of sleeping with gorgeous young wimmins .....

I need help

[mattdavis11]

^^ There is nothing wrong with you helping the ugly wimmins get over the fear of sleeping with gorgeous men. Someone has to do it.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

^^ There is nothing wrong with you helping the ugly wimmins get over the fear of sleeping with gorgeous men. Someone has to do it.

LOL .... I forget the song it's from....

"(Honey) .... I'm not one of those!"

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by fintstone

I started walking the 8 blocks to school and home with my 9 months older brother in the first grade (I was five and he was six). I saw where a woman was arrested for letting her 8-year-old do this. Seems like a different world. My mother dropped me off downtown at 6AM in the nearest city (on her way to work) about once a week in the summer I was 10 or 11 and spent the day and then she picked me up on the way home at around 5PM on her way home. I had a dime for a pay phone if there was an emergency, but never wasted it. I waited outside for the public library to open, read all day, checked out books and met her at my drop off point. As I child, I worked with my father (hard labor) and had very specific responsibilities...where if I failed, we did not eat/have a warm place to live. I left home at 17 with nothing and built a life for myself (and my soon to be family). Big responsibility (and opportunity for failure) builds character. Whining/losing is never an option.

I remember looking at my checking account check register and seeing single digits in my account after moving to a new city 900 miles from mom and dad. The physical move, paying for the apartment deposit, first and last month rent, setting up utilities with no credit history in the state, so lots of utility deposits, and trying to buy some food for the empty fridge was expensive. I ate a lot of rice, beans, and potatoes. Friday night payday meant I got to pour a can of soup over the rice and splurge. And I was starting at 12 grand per year salary, so no big paychecks for a while. I had no friends in a strange city, and all the employees at work were married and did not want to hang with the single guy. No GPS in those days, so to get somewhere I had to use an analog map and map out my route before leaving the apartment.

Somehow I survived, met many wonderful friends, and built a great life in this city.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by fintstone

I started walking the 8 blocks to school and home with my 9 months older brother in the first grade (I was five and he was six). I saw where a woman was arrested for letting her 8-year-old do this. Seems like a different world. My mother dropped me off downtown at 6AM in the nearest city (on her way to work) about once a week in the summer I was 10 or 11 and spent the day and then she picked me up on the way home at around 5PM on her way home. I had a dime for a pay phone if there was an emergency, but never wasted it. I waited outside for the public library to open, read all day, checked out books and met her at my drop off point. As I child, I worked with my father (hard labor) and had very specific responsibilities...where if I failed, we did not eat/have a warm place to live. I left home at 17 with nothing and built a life for myself (and my soon to be family). Big responsibility (and opportunity for failure) builds character. Whining/losing is never an option.

It is a different world Fint. My grandkids live in an urban environment and my 7 year old grand daughter will start walking to school by herself next year because her older brother is moving to the middle school. I'm not at all comfortable with it.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

Forgive what may be obvious but Exposure Therapy = Face Your Fears? If so it's nothing new. It's often referred to as "manning up". Or am I just a neanderthal frozen in time?

You can be right and still be a Neanderthal

Originally Posted by flatbutt

It is a different world Fint. My grandkids live in an urban environment and my 7 year old grand daughter will start walking to school by herself next year because her older brother is moving to the middle school. I'm not at all comfortable with it.

So much has changed, even from when my children were little, and we live in a rural area that, while less of a overall burdeen, comes with different sets of situational awareness requirements.

What we did with our children was the introductions into playing music, working on equipment, mowing, riding small ATV's, watercraft, horses, sports, etc. Our only stipulation was if they decided to try, they could not quit until the season or semester was over.

Mowing, chores, not so much.

But they never stopped even after rocky starts. That is the power of activity, of bring in the arena: Set backs and the horrors of losing and not playing well are the same for everyone...it is going to happen.

For me it was sports. I had no interest in the ancillary aspects of playing sports, just that I wanted to compete and see how I stacked up. I hated the build up tp games, the nonsense surrounding even HS competitions. But that was part of the exposure.

Then the games, the blessed games...three things I remember clearly. Football made me anxious and nervous until the first smack, then I could settle in. Baseball made me happy since the first time I remember playing the game. Basketball: While I started all 4 years in HS, I knew I was one new kid in town from Sixth Man, two from El Bencho and three from being buried with Hoffa

Our kids need exposure, competition, winners and losers, the gamut. Got to live.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Superman

Well I'm not sure why almost no one is commenting but I have guesses. I find this "new" old concept of Exposure Therapy so amusing because of the huge role it has played in my life. When people meet with me, and even if they are workmates for years, they often have the impression I am very calm, relaxed and unflappable. This is the surface presentation however. In reality, I am very anxious. I often feel out of breath as though I am not getting enough oxygen. Breathing is a conscious thing for me, because of anxiety. As a child, I was fearful. Frightened.

And from this, because of this, I have learned to do scary things. On purpose. I had no choice. It was either that or live a life in fear. For example: As a person who often has a feeling of being out of breath...I am learning SCUBA diving. Exposure Therapy? Story of my life.

What happens to a baby if it isn't held by it's mother...It crys and grows anxious.

Ones Mother offers warmth, sustenance and security to a baby. Deprive a baby of that and it becomes fearful and anxious.