Therapist Materials for Skills for Emotion Exposures

Abstract

The session in this chapter introduces emotion exposures, which involve the planned introduction of a stimulus to provoke habitually avoided emotions in order to reduce avoidance and promote new learning. An emotion exposure can be designed to provoke any emotion, and can be situational or imaginal, in the therapy office or elsewhere. Clients in this treatment program plan emotion exposures for emotions associated with their eating disorder and other emotional issues that are involve patterns of emotional avoidance or suppression. In this session, clients begin filling out a personal emotion exposure hierarchy and learn to identify principles of planning an emotion exposure, as well as how to record before and after exposures.