Avoidance Hierarchy Worksheet
By
HappierTherapy
Author bio
The Happier Therapy editorial team is made up of Masters and PhD counselling psychologists. Each worksheet is created by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The worksheet then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
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What is the theory behind the Avoidance Hierarchy Worksheet?
Avoidance hierarchy or fear hierarchy is the CBT technique that helps us make a list of fearful situations starting from least anxiety-provoking to most anxiety-provoking situations. Also, they rate their level of anxiety in each situation. With the help of this worksheet, a person gets an idea of different situations and the level of anxiety in every situation. He/she then prepares themselves for graded exposure. The person exposes himself to anxiety situations starting from the bottom and moves towards more anxiety-provoking situations.
How can this worksheet help you?
This worksheet can help an individual in developing their avoidance or fear hierarchy. This hierarchy helps you identify different situations and levels of anxiety. You can utilize this worksheet in your therapy as well to gradually encounter fearful situations and work on your fears and anxieties. You will ultimately decrease your avoidance behavior and move towards accomplishing your goals. It will also increase the tolerance for anxiety situations and you can learn to manage symptoms more productively.
How to use this worksheet?
This worksheet is to develop a hierarchy of your fearful and anxious situation. Starting from the bottom (item no.1), write the least anxiety-provoking situation and rate it and move towards more anxiety-provoking situations. On the top (item no.10) write the most anxiety-provoking situation. After completing it, you can use this worksheet for exposure therapy starting from item number 1.