See Also: Systematic desensitization(health)
systematic desensitization(medicine)
Herbal medicine (botanical medicine, herbology, phytomedicine)(health)
desensitization(medicine)
desensitization(encyclopedia)
Desensitization(health)
Allergy desensitization(health)
desensitization, allergy(medicine)
desensitization, psychologic(medicine)
Allergy desensitization(medicine)

systematic desensitization (medicine)


systematic desensitization


A type of behaviour therapy for eliminating phobias or anxieties: the patient and therapist construct a list of imagined scenes eliciting the phobia, ranked from least to most anxiety-producing; the patient then is trained in deep muscle relaxation, and is repeatedly asked to imagine himself in the presence of the least anxiety-producing scene on the list until he feels fully relaxed while doing so; the procedure is repeated for each scene on the list until the patient develops the capacity to feel relaxed with any of the anxiety-producing scenes; real life scenes are then substituted for the imagined scenes.

Synonym: reciprocal inhibition.