The Contributions Of Joseph Wolpe's Theory Of Systematic Desensitization?

Joseph Wolpe was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on April 20, 1915. He grew up in South Africa and received his M.D. from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Wolpe then joined the South African Army during World War II and served as a medical officer as well as worked in a military hospital. In 1948, he married Stella Ettman and they had two children. After the war, Wolpe returned to the University of Witwatersrand where he later moved to the United States to work at the University of Virginia for five years before becoming a professor at Temple University Medical School as a professor of psychiatry. During his time at Temple, he also served as the second president of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy. Wolpe stated that Ivan Pavlov was one of his main influences in Wolpe’s research because of his development of classical

This aims to remove the fear response of a phobia and substitute a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus. There are three steps to Systematic Desensitization. The first step is the relaxation techniques. Wolpe would teach his patients deep muscle, breathing exercises, mediation, deep breathing, releasing muscle tension and other relaxation techniques. This is the most important steps because tension is a result of fear so if the patient can relax, then they can overcome their phobia. The second step is where the patient and therapist create the patient’s fear hierarchy with fear rating from 10 to 100. Third and final step is that the patient enters a deep state relaxation, then they are exposed to each level of fear. The patient then uses their relaxation techniques to lower their tension and ease their anxiety. They can always go back a level of fear if the patient cannot handle the current level (Wolpe, 1964; Wolpe,