Hierarchy of fear worksheet (Graded exposure)
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 this Hierarchy of fear worksheet?
Hierarchy of fear is constructed during exposure therapy for treatment of phobias as part of Behavior Therapy. It is a systematic list of fear inducing stimuli (E.g. Objects and situations). It works by gradually exposing clients to feared stimuli to overcome the fear.
How will the worksheet help?
This worksheet will help your clients create a hierarchy of fear by ranking different aspects of the feared stimulus from the least fearful to most fearful aspect. Exposure to the feared stimulus reduces the fear by creating familiarity and minimizing the avoidance of that stimulus.
How to use this worksheet?
Rank different aspects of the feared stimulus from the least fearful to most fearful. Think of all the steps you have to follow before completely getting exposed to the feared stimulus. Rate each step with intensity of fear towards it on a scale from 0-10. Arrange your ranking in descending order. Start with the least fearful step and rate the intensity of fear after each exposure.
