Shame Attacking Exercises - CBT - REBT

[hypno-therapist]

Over the past four months I have been on a roller coaster of learning experiences that I believe have been character building for me.

Just imagine going through a period where your ideas of success, love, contentment and so much more are just chucked out of the window and realizing that this thing called 'life' is not a dress rehearsal.

Anyway...

During this period of learning I have come across a process called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and I must say that I am very excited about what can be achieved with it. I have in the same time also came across a process called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Within REBT (which is very similar to CBT) is a technique called Shame Attacking Exercises (SAE), which is what I want to discuss and debate with you today.

First of all and before explaining this technique I would like to encourage anybody that has an understanding of this approach or who have indeed used this approach to join in this thread. Even it they have had success or failure and even if you don't know anything about the other topics that we usually discuss on this forum, e.g. ? Hypnosis, EFT or NLP.

So what are Shame Attacking Exercises?

Well, as I understand it, they are exercises that induce shame/anxiety in order to allow the participant to understand that the feeling that they are experiencing and the scenario that they are in is not in anyway going to hurt them and that in fact the original fear/anxiety was actually irrational and not helpful. In theory, the longer the exposure to the exercise the higher the anxiety threshold. This is very similar to a technique called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), which forms a major part of CBT.

So let me give you some examples.

I read the following about the man that created REBT, Albert Ellis, using a type of SAE to overcome the fear of rejection.

[hypno-therapist]

Well, I have had plenty of first hand experience this week putting the theory of Shame Attacking Exercises to the test.

First of all I just want to say that doing these exercises made change fun!

It does seem though that there is a bit of an art to picking the right type of exercise for you and you have to make sure that your record your results as though it was a proper experiment to get the full results.

A colleague of mine told me 'seams like a childish way and not very effective'. Hmm... What I saw last week was extremely effective and would certainly be a beneficial tool to any therapists box!

Has any one else had any experience with SAE or other exposure exercises?

[hypno-therapist]

Whilst taking my pet banana (burt) out for a walk yesterday evening, I was asked by a group of teenagers if I had a screw loose! It amazed me that it took me walking burt for them to acknowledge this fact

All in all it was a great shame attacking exercise!