Definition
Systematic desensitization is a form of exposure therapy developed by Joseph Wolpe for treatment of anxiety disorders.
Systematic desensitization is a form of exposure therapy pioneered by Joseph Wolpe in the 1950s for the purposes of reducing or inhibiting anxious responding. In systematic desensitization, a client is exposed to increasingly anxiety-provoking situations while engaging in a behavior that generates a response incompatible with anxiety (e.g., relaxation; Wolpe 1954). Systematic desensitization was developed on the premise of reciprocal inhibition or the idea that the association between an anxiety-evoking stimulus and anxious responding can be weakened via repeated pairings of the provocative stimulus with a physiological state that is antagonistic with anxiety (Wolpe 1968).
As described by Wolpe, systematic desensitization is a three-step process. During the first phase of treatment, clients work collaboratively with a clinician to generate a hierarchy of...
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Thomas, K., Dowd, C., Broman-Fulks, J. (2020). Systematic Desensitization. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_952
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