Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Made Simple: 10 Strategies for Managing Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Panic and Worry (Sheldon Press)

by Seth J. Gillihan

these steps to conquer your fears: 1 Create a list of ways to face your fears. Include items on your list that vary in difficulty. Be as creative as you can to come up with a variety of situations that would trigger your fear. 2 Rate how difficult each one would be. Make your best guess about how much distress you would feel in each situation; a 0–10 scale tends to work well, but use a different scale if you prefer. See the example that follows. 3 Arrange your items in descending order of difficulty. This ordered list of exposure ideas is called your “hierarchy.” You might build your hierarchy in a spreadsheet to make it easy to work with. As you review your list, do you notice any big gaps in your numbers, like a jump from a 2 to a 7? If so, look for ways to modify your items to make them easier or harder so you can add intermediate items. For example, doing a difficult activity with a loved one can make it more manageable, and can facilitate a transition to doing it on your own.