Introduction to Systematic De-sensitisation

Systematic De-Sensitisation as a 'scientific approach' to healing anxiety disorders appeared in the 1950's; but the process of systematic de-sensitisation, as a part of the process of being alive and adjusting to the world around us, has been something all living organisms have been going through since organisms first came into existence.

Humans didn't invent the process - we just gave recognition to something already a part of our biological make-up.

This Monday to Friday I'm posting about different aspects of the de-sensitisation process with advice on getting your own de-sensitisation plan together in Friday's post.

Please note:  anyone considering undertaking a de-sensitisation programme in order to remove anxiety disorders such as obsessions, panic attacks, phobias, depression or any other emotion-related illness should try and include professional support in that plan if they can - the support of a doctor, counsellor or psychiatrist can be invaluable.  We don't need to agree with everything they suggest - but we do benefit from their support and even negotiating with them on what we won't be doing can lead to unconscious changes that help us for a lifetime after healing has taken place.

Having said all that, you can heal yourself using systematic de-sensitisation without getting professional support (I just wouldn't recommend working on it completely alone or with untrained social contacts if you have a choice).

Here I'm going to answer the following two questions:

• What is 'sensitisation'; why and how do we become 'sensitised'?


• What is 'De-Sensitisation' ?

Sensitisation happens when we:

1. produce an intense emotional response to a triggering stimulus and then


2. fail to fully release the energy contained within the response and then


3. become resistant to releasing that response and start to produce additional emotional responses intended to keep the initial response trapped inside our bodies.

Here's a quick model of how a new parent can become sensitised over a period of time:

• parent has newborn child and their co-parent's behaviour repeatedly endangers the safety of the child


• parent becomes enraged with co-parent over their behaviour and arguments ensue during which the co-parent refuses to behave differently and threatens to leave unless the parent becomes less 'domineering'


• parent suppresses their rage in order to keep the relationship together (maybe for the sake of the child) but continues to be worried, and enraged, about the co-parent's behaviour and their negative emotional responses increase in variety and intensity but they dare not show it


• parent starts feeling guilty about their own continually bad moods; labels themselves 'bad' and tries to become more tolerant of the co-parent's behaviour - but finds they are angrier and more frightened than they have ever been before in their life - they start to have nightmares; develop panic attacks; phobias and obsessions.

That's one way sensitisation can occur - over days, weeks and years.  But it can also happen suddenly as a result of 'shock' in regard to an experience that occurs suddenly.  Shock is a freezing response that stops an emotional process in its tracks.  The person cannot make up their mind what direction to go in and ends up feeling completely helpless for the duration of the response (the situation that caused the response may be long gone by the time the person has learned how to de-frost the response).

This 'helplessness' reaction is a normal experience for most prey animals - rabbits and impalas, for example, but for us humans there's a problem - our bodies may be the bodies of prey animals; but our minds have the attitudes and beliefs of predators.  We may well bridge the gap between the prey-predator argument with our ability to create and use tools as weapons but unfortunately our bodies still behave like the prey animals they are.

Humans are Prey Animals that Have Trouble Accepting That's What They Are

In his book Waking the TigerPeter A Levine (with Ann Frederick) gives a full explanation of what happens when people hold back from experiencing the full fear response all mammals are equipped with and we can end up being 'stuck'  in mid-cycle because we consciously fight the sense of helplessness that accompanies this process.

The book explains how mammals go through an 'immobilisation' response, which disconnects their minds from their bodies, in order to reduce the pain when their unconscious signals they are about to be eaten.  It also explains that it sometimes becomes a survival trait because sometimes the predator thinks the animal is dead and will wander off - the impala eventually gets up off the floor, shakes itself back to life and escapes.  This is a response managed by the animal's unconscious brain and it has no conscious control over it.

We humans don't like that idea at all, do we?  'Pull yourself together!' - that's what humans like the sound of.  People who have a shocking experience (or series of experiences) may become 'traumatised' - that is, frozen in the middle of this immobilisation cycle and in order to heal have to revisit and reinterpret the responses buried in their psyche in order to come through it and shake it off in the same way the impala does.

Emotional Hijacking

At a lower intensity is the process of 'emotional hijacking' - which follows the same pattern as the immobilisation response in that to be fully released from it a person has to enter into an intense emotional response until it has fully passed through the body.  Emotional hijacking causes the shut down of the logical thinking mind and means the surrender of the entire body to an intense emotional response.

Sensitised people fight this hijacking process and get caught between being constantly ready to 'explode' but also desperately trying to stop that exploding taking place by constricting their responses.

This initially consciously driven process (suppression), caused by beliefs that say 'I should not and must not feel this way' quickly turns into an unconscious habitual process (repression) leading to a confused person who no longer understands what causes them to feel that way.  They put it down to a 'terrible new personality'.

To put it all in one sentence:  a sensitised person is someone who is highly emotionally overcharged but finds themselves unable to release the charge because in turn they dread the affects of emotional hijacking and helplessness that accompany such a release.

What is 'De-Sensitisation'?

There are two main aspects to de-sensitisation:

• switching off the repeating trigger affect - 'see trigger have response' and


• discharging emotional charge already stored in the body.

These two elements of a sensitised state constantly reinforce each other but you only need to focus on one - and call its bluff - in order to break and evaporate the cycle.  My preference is to repeatedly enter the emotional response and let the 're-triggering' mechanism take care of itself - and this works fine.

'De-sensitisation' is the act of releasing trapped intense emotional charge through the process known as 'feeling'.  'Systematic De-sensitisation' involves breaking the overall, and overwhelming, emotional cycle concerned down into smaller emotional cycles; then repeatedly working through the smaller cycles (healing them) until the person removes the entire sensitised state.  Instead of trying to have one huge, all encompassing emotional hijacking event the person accepts having to do it in smaller intense bursts (I doubt with many anxiety-related disorders it's possible to do it all in one go any way).

One of the reasons it is so difficult to remove such a state in one go is because our brains are only capable of processing a small amount of information at any one time - the scientifically agreed rate is 9 bits per second plus or minus two bits (if anyone thinks that's wrong let me know - I wouldn't want you to be getting any wrong bits of information here).  An emotional response produces millions of bits of information - and it takes a while for the brain to process information this intense.

An additional benefit of healing a smaller emotional cycle before moving on to a bigger one is that we learn the process actually works and it starts to reinforce our confidence in carrying on to the harder next stage.

OK that's it for now - tomorrow I'll post two 'elevator phobia' videos under the post heading 'What shape do you give your emotional response?'.

Did you find this useful?  Please add any comments below or email me at carl@managemesystems.com with any queries.

Regards - Carl