What is the purpose of graded exposure in cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders?

• A. Increase avoidance
• B. Gradually confront feared stimuli to reduce avoidance and anxiety
• C. Improve dream recall
• D. Ignore feared situations

Answer: (B)

Graded exposure aims to reduce avoidance and anxiety by gradually confronting feared stimuli in a controlled way. The idea is that avoidance helps keep anxiety going because it prevents you from learning that the feared situation is not actually dangerous or harmful. By slowly facing the fear, you experience situations that are still uncomfortable but tolerable, and over time your fear response diminishes through habituation and extinction learning. A typical approach uses a fear hierarchy, starting with mildly distressing situations and moving up as tolerance improves, which can be done in real life or through imagination. As exposure continues, avoidance decreases, anxiety drops, and functioning improves.

Increasing avoidance would reinforce the fear instead of reducing it, so it’s not effective. Improving dream recall isn’t related to how exposure reduces anxiety, and ignoring feared situations only maintains or worsens the fear.