Final answer:
Systematic desensitization is a therapeutic technique used to treat phobias by gradually exposing individuals to the feared stimulus in a controlled and relaxed manner, leveraging habituation to decrease the fear response.
Step-by-step explanation:
Systematic desensitization is a psychological method used to help individuals overcome phobias or other unwanted fears. This therapy leverages habituation, which is the process of becoming less responsive to a repeated stimulus.
The goal of systematic desensitization is to reduce the emotional response to a feared object or situation by gradually and systematically exposing the individual to fear-inducing stimuli while they are in a state of relaxation. This can be done using a hierarchy of fears, where the person is exposed to the least frightening scenario first and progressively moves towards the most frightening.
As the person learns to remain relaxed in the presence of lower-level stimuli, they can then cope more effectively with higher levels of fear. This method is rooted in the principles of classical conditioning and has been successfully used in treating various types of phobias, such as fear of public speaking, animals, and flying.