A clinical psychologist treats a patient with severe fear of flying using virtual reality exposure therapy. Across eight sessions, the patient wears a head-mounted display that simulates boarding, takeoff, turbulence, and landing. The therapist measures self-reported anxiety on a 0-100 scale every five minutes and waits for ratings to decline before advancing to a more intense scene.
The therapist's strategy of waiting for anxiety ratings to drop before increasing intensity is consistent with which principle?
- A
Aversive counterconditioning to suppress fear
- B
Reciprocal inhibition through deep relaxation
- Ccheck_circle
Habituation within an exposure hierarchy
- D
Systematic flooding to overwhelm avoidance
Explanation
Graduated exposure relies on habituation: repeated presentation of a feared stimulus reduces physiological arousal over time, allowing the therapist to advance the hierarchy. Flooding skips graduated steps, reciprocal inhibition pairs relaxation with stimuli (a different mechanism), and aversive counterconditioning pairs an undesired stimulus with discomfort.