Anxiety and Heights
Climbing above Fear
Jane was an adult female with a severe fear of heights which had been ongoing for many years. This restricted many of the activities she wanted to take part in, impacted family life and prevented the family from taking part in many activities together. The fear had led to her being extremely cautious in everyday life, with her family also becoming restricted in many of their everyday activities.
In the studio, over two treatment sessions, she experienced graded exposure to a number of scenarios to work with the therapist on her fear of heights, including gradually increasing in height in a building with a glass balcony. She also worked in a virtual scene of going up a mountain in a chair ski lift to challenge the fear of heights. Jane was able to work through the graded scenes and learn techniques to manage her anxiety in these situations. Her family were able to observe the sessions and see the techniques the therapist taught the patient to help her manage her anxiety.
At the end of the last treatment session, she was given some small next steps to try in the ‘real world’. Two months after treatment, Jane completed the post-treatment assessment form (which looks at the outcomes of the treatment). She described her outcomes as a definite improvement, describing herself as less fearful of heights and with a great deal less anxiety and stress in the height situations she would previously have feared.
The result is that she and her family have been able to do things differently now and are able to visit more places or be in more situations she previously would have found too difficult resulting in the family being able to do many more activities. Whilst there is still some anxiety there, she now has confidence that she can manage this and has gone on to work through increasingly challenging real-life situations with success.
*** when referring to our clients, we use the names Jane and John, these are not their real names, we do this to protect their identity and privacy.