> Exposure therapy is the cure for anxiety.
Except when it is not. Exposure can make an autistic person's anxiety worse.
Except when it is not. Exposure can make an autistic person's anxiety worse.
Exposure therapy can make sense if it always resorts in good outcomes but that’s the issue - bad things do happen. And sometimes bad things happen more often to those who are “needing” exposure therapy.
Just randomly doing shit that causes you stress isn't exposure therapy. It's just hazing yourself and rolling the dice as to the outcome.
> Exposure therapy can make sense if it always resorts in good outcomes but that’s the issue
I think you have an over-simplified notion of "good outcome" here.
It's not necessarily about achieving the goal of the action, it's about seeing that the catastrophizing scenarios in your head aren't based in reality. In the example with the ugly kid, if he's afraid that asking a girl out will lead to her laughing in his face and publicly humiliating him, then even simply being rejected with compassion is enough to thwart that catastrophizing.
But, of course, having him ask out every girl at the school is a terrible example of "exposure therapy". Strangers should not be used as unconsenting test subjects in one's personal therapy.