The treatment of fears often requires a reassuringly structured program where the fearful person is gradually exposed to their fear.

The easy/hard list

A list is made of about ten items that are frightening to the person being treated. The items are put in order from least to most frightening.

If professionals do this, they first make sure the person is relaxed, by playing a relaxation tape or using other relaxation techniques.

Next they say, ‘Now I’m going to describe a scene. If you are scared, just raise your finger and I’ll stop.’ Usually the person being treated is so relaxed by the time the frightening thing is described that it doesn’t seem frightening any more.

With young children it might be useful to play music, or even offer food and toys, when the scary thing is mentioned and as you work through the list.

Easy/hard list for a fear of dogs

Suppose you wanted to help an eight-year-old boy called Mark overcome the fear of dogs he developed after being mauled by the next door neighbour’s dog.

By talking with Mark you would write down a list of scary things that he might do with dogs. Mark could rank them from the least to the most scary. The list might look like this:

• Suddenly seeing a picture of a dog in a comic.

• Talking to Mum about going to visit a friend who owns a dog.

• Seeing a photo of a dog in the paper.

• Driving past a dog while you’re in the car.

• Seeing a cartoon about a dog on TV.

• Going for a walk in the park and seeing a dog in the distance.

• Watching a movie about a dog.

• Being told a scary story about a dog.

• Watching a person who has a dog on a lead.

• Patting a dog on the head.

Here’s how you would use the list with relaxation. First you would ask Mark to close his eyes and imagine a lovely place that he has visited or would like to visit. Then you would ask him to imagine what it would be like to actually be in each situation on the list – only proceeding if Mark was not feeling too scared. You could assess his level of fear by asking him to give you scores out of ten on the ‘fear thermometer’.