Which therapy is described as systematically desensitizing a client to an anxiety trigger by gradually inducing relaxation over time?

• A. Exposure Therapy
• B. Systematic Desensitization
• C. Aversion Therapy
• D. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Answer: (A)

This item tests how fear can be reduced by pairing a calming response with gradual exposure to the feared trigger. Systematic desensitization works by first teaching the client a relaxation technique, then building an anxiety hierarchy from easiest to hardest feared situations. The person practices the feared situations while maintaining a state of relaxation, advancing only when they can stay calm. Over time, the trigger becomes associated with calm rather than with fear, weakening the anxiety response through gradual exposure and the reciprocal inhibition of fear with relaxation.

This approach is distinct from exposure therapy, which emphasizes exposure to the trigger to promote habituation or extinction, often without the structured relaxation training at the core of systematic desensitization. Aversion therapy uses negative consequences to discourage a behavior, and cognitive-behavioral therapy is a broader framework that encompasses many techniques, not specifically the relaxation-plus-gradual-exposure pairing described here.