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Health Differences Across the Lifespan 2 Study Guide • Instructing the client to tense each muscle group for approximately 10seconds • Explaining the tension of the muscle and how uncomfortable the body part feels • Asking the patient to relax eachmuscle • Making the patient feel the difference in the situation Other aspects of relaxation therapy include: • Hypnosis: Some clinicians use hypnosis to facilitaterelaxation. • Mental imaginary: A relaxation method in which patients are instructed to imagine themselves in a place associated with pleasant relaxed memories. Such images allow the patients to enter a relaxed state or experience therelaxation responses. • Meditation or yoga: Present daymeditation and yoga are practiced and taught by the clinician to relax the patients. It is an immerging trend in relaxation therapy. • Adjunctive use of drugs: Various drugs are used to hasten the relaxation. The drugs commonly used are barbiturate sodium methohexital and diazepam. Hierarchy construction: When constructing a hierarchy, clinicians determine the conditions that elicit anxiety. Patients create a hierarchy list consisting of 12 to 19 scenes in order of increasing anxiety. An example of a hierarchy of events associated with a fear of elevators would be as follows: • Discuss riding in an elevator with the therapist • Look at a picture of an elevator • Walk into the lobby of a building and see theelevators • Push the button for the elevator • Walk in to the elevator with a trusted person and disembark before the door closes • Walk into an elevator with a trusted person and allow the door to close, then openthe door and walk out • Rise one floor with the trusted person, then walk down the stairs • Ride the elevator one floor with a trusted person and ride the elevator backdown • Ride the elevator alone Desensitization: Desensitization of the stimulus is the final step. Patients proceed systematically through the list from the least to the most anxiety provoking scene while in a deeply relaxed state. Under the guidance of the therapist, the patient begins the item on the list that causes minimal fear and looks at it, thinks about it, or actually confronts it while remaining in a relaxed state. The idea is that the phobic object or the situation is conditioned stimulus that the patient has learned to fear because it was originally paired with a real fearful stimulus. By paring the old, conditioned stimulus with a new relaxation response that is compatible with the emotions and the physical arousal associated with the fear, the person’s fear is reduced and relieved. The person then proceeds to the next item on the hierarchy until the phobia is gone.

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