Computer-Aided Emotional Restructuring for aspergers Syndrome 
Part - 4

These are the same active ingredients found in systematic  (Wolpe, 1973).  Systematic desensitization is one of the best-researched and most effective psychotherapy techniques ever developed, though it is seldom used.  Why is it not used if it is so great? Let me explain the procedure because that answers both why it works so well and why it is seldom used.  Systematic desensitization is a long, drawn out process.  First, 5 to 10 sessions are spent teaching Jacobson deep muscle relaxation. This allows the patient to relax himself profoundly and on cue from the therapist.

Once the patient can quickly and deeply relax himself, the therapist and patient use several more sessions to develop a progressive hierarchy of increasingly more distressing images.  Once the relaxation is taught and the hierarchy is developed, then the real  begins.  This may be eight to twelve sessions into the process. The actual consists of first having the patient use the self-relaxation techniques to deeply relax himself.  Once they are very relaxed, the therapist has the patient imagine the least threatening image in the hierarchy, such as fear of elevators. If that image makes the patient anxious, he is asked to stop the image and relax himself.  If the image does not elicit any , the patient is asked to imagine the next image in the hierarchy and so on.

This process of alternating potentially -producing images and deep relaxation is continued until all the images in the hierarchy can be imagined without the patient experiencing any anxiety.  The technique is often continued into the real world with the patient and therapist physically retracing the steps in the hierarchy to the real elevator.

They continue the process until neither the image nor the in vivo experience of the elevator produces any .  The patient can then ride elevators without any anxiety response.  This may take far more sessions than most patients are willing to do or insurance companies are willing to pay for.  However, if you persevere, it works very well. 

  works in a way similar to systematic , but far more quickly.  The CAER machine triggers a physiological response that puts the patient in a profoundly relaxed, almost sleep-like state.  For most people this happens within five to fifteen minutes of the beginning of their first CAER treatment.

In this deeply relaxed state, the patient’s imagery is also enhanced, much as if they were dreaming.  They can vividly relive emotionally distressing experiences.  As previously described, the emotions are naturally organized along common emotional themes. This serves the same purpose as the therapist generated hierarchies used in systematic desensitization.

Because of this, once the patient experiences a particular feeling state, other experiences with the same feeling tone are stimulated and thereby become accessible to the patient, one after the other. 

Just as in , the powerful relaxation overpowers the negative feelings and quickly extinguishes it.  The image remains, but without the emotional responses previously conditioned to it.

For HFA children, removing the negative emotions associated with their social interaction history allows them to access and learn a wider range of more appropriate interaction patterns.