How to Do self-Exposure
Choice, Comfort, and Control
Think that exposure therapy has to be overwhelming?
The good news is, the opposite is true.
The goal of exposure therapy is to titrate slowly and deliberately. When you start slow and experience "wins," you can gain a sense of calm and mastery. You can keep building on those wins until the fear is replaced.
Moving too fast, feeling overwhelmed and out of control, or "flooding" can set you back, reaffirming your fears. Slow and in control is the best way to go.
Get to know your SUD's
This is is a helpful term that will come up a lot.
SUD stands for Subjective Units of Distress. We measure SUDs out of 10.
10/10 SUDs would represent the most distress you've ever felt.
0/10 SUDs would represent a lovely calm with zero distress.
Check in with yourself right now. Don't overthink it - what are your SUDs in this moment? Keep in mind that this scale is subjective. There's no wrong answer.
Get to know your 0/10
Zero distress will be your anchor, your home, your calm place to return to over and over again. We need it in order to re-train the brain's fear response.
0/10 SUDs might be what you feel like while doing your favourite activity, or with your favourite person. It might be how you feel when laughing at a joke, in a "flow" state, or when you're feeling perfectly safe and content.
If you can't remember the last time you felt no distress, don't panic. You can work by yourself or with a therapist to find your calm again.
Step by step
Forget diving into the deep end.
Exposure is meant to be methodical. It starts small.
As you'll see from the Exposure pages, you want to gain complete mastery over each step before starting the next one.
Before you begin, you can start with your "0 SUDs" space, or Calm Place - click the image to the right to be guided.