You’re tired of managing symptoms instead of solving the problem. Exposure therapy doesn’t just teach coping skills—it eliminates the fear response that keeps you trapped. Research shows over 90% of people who complete exposure therapy for phobias see lasting improvement, with 80% of PTSD patients still benefiting six years later.
This isn’t about positive thinking or relaxation techniques. It’s about systematically facing what scares you in a controlled, safe environment until your brain learns there’s nothing to fear. You’ll work through carefully designed exposures that start small and build your confidence, whether that’s touching a doorknob without washing your hands, giving a presentation, or processing traumatic memories.
The result? You stop organizing your life around what you’re afraid of. You can travel, socialize, work, and live without constantly calculating escape routes or performing rituals that steal hours from your day.
We bring world-class exposure therapy expertise to Round Rock residents through both virtual and in-person sessions. Our team includes nationally known researchers, published clinicians, and advocates—many with lived experience of the conditions we treat.
This isn’t a general practice trying to handle everything. We focus exclusively on anxiety disorders, OCD, and trauma using the most effective evidence-based methods available. Our clinicians have shaped international treatment guidelines and written foundational books in the field, but we also understand what it’s like to sit in your shoes.
Round Rock families have access to the same specialized care found at major research institutions, delivered with the personal attention and cultural sensitivity that comes from truly understanding this community’s needs.
Your treatment starts with a thorough assessment to understand your specific fears, avoidance patterns, and goals. Together, you’ll create a personalized fear hierarchy—ranking situations from mildly uncomfortable to most terrifying. This becomes your roadmap to recovery.
Exposure sessions begin with the easiest items on your list. If you have contamination OCD, you might start by touching a “clean” surface without washing. For social anxiety, you might begin with making eye contact in a virtual reality environment. Each exposure is designed to create just enough anxiety to learn something new without overwhelming you.
The key is staying in the situation until your anxiety naturally decreases—usually 20-30 minutes. Your brain learns that the feared outcome doesn’t happen, or if it does, you can handle it. Between sessions, you’ll practice response prevention, which means resisting the urge to perform compulsions or safety behaviors that maintain your fears.
Sessions progress systematically through your hierarchy until you can handle situations that once seemed impossible. Most people see significant improvement within 12-20 sessions, though some intensive programs can achieve results in just four days.
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Treatment includes multiple exposure techniques tailored to your specific needs. In vivo exposure involves facing real-life situations—like driving over bridges for driving phobia or eating in restaurants for social anxiety. Imaginal exposure uses detailed mental imagery to process traumatic memories or unlikely feared scenarios.
Virtual reality exposure therapy offers a controlled way to practice social situations, public speaking, or phobia triggers when real-life exposure isn’t practical. This technology allows you to experience realistic scenarios—from job interviews to airplane flights—while building confidence in a safe environment.
For Round Rock residents, this means you can address fears that are specific to local situations. Whether it’s anxiety about driving on I-35 during rush hour, speaking up in Austin-area business meetings, or managing social situations at local community events, treatment addresses the real challenges you face in your daily environment. The combination of cutting-edge technology and time-tested techniques ensures you get the most effective treatment available.
Exposure therapy, particularly Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is considered the gold-standard treatment for OCD and anxiety disorders by major psychiatric associations. Research consistently shows that over 90% of people with specific phobias who complete exposure therapy experience significant improvement, with many requiring no additional treatment.
For OCD, approximately two-thirds of patients who receive ERP see meaningful symptom reduction, and the American Psychiatric Association recommends it as first-line treatment due to its strong research support. Studies tracking patients for six years post-treatment show that over 80% of PTSD patients continue to benefit from prolonged exposure therapy, demonstrating lasting results rather than temporary symptom management.
The key difference from other therapies is that exposure therapy actually changes how your brain responds to fear triggers, rather than just teaching you to cope with anxiety. This creates lasting change that doesn’t require ongoing maintenance sessions for most people.
Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) and traditional in vivo exposure are equally effective for most anxiety disorders, with research showing comparable results for social anxiety, phobias, and PTSD. The main advantage of VR is that it allows you to practice situations that would be difficult, expensive, or impossible to create in real life.
For example, if you have a fear of flying, traditional exposure might require multiple expensive flights. With VR, you can experience realistic airplane scenarios repeatedly in a single session. For social anxiety, you can practice public speaking in front of virtual audiences of varying sizes and reactions, building confidence before facing real-world situations.
Many people actually prefer VR exposure because it feels safer and more controlled while still triggering the same anxiety responses needed for learning. The virtual environment can be adjusted in real-time—making a crowd smaller or larger, changing lighting, or modifying other variables to match your current comfort level. This precision allows for more systematic progression through your fear hierarchy than traditional methods sometimes allow.
Most people see significant improvement within 12-20 sessions of exposure therapy, with sessions typically scheduled weekly. However, the timeline varies based on the severity of your condition, how many different fears you’re addressing, and how consistently you practice between sessions.
For specific phobias, improvement can happen quite quickly—sometimes within 4-8 sessions. More complex conditions like OCD or PTSD may require longer treatment, typically 15-25 sessions. Some intensive programs compress treatment into daily sessions over 2-4 weeks, which can be especially effective for people who want faster results or have tried other treatments without success.
The key factor isn’t just the number of sessions, but your willingness to fully engage with exposures and resist safety behaviors between appointments. People who practice exposure exercises outside of sessions and avoid performing compulsions or avoidance behaviors typically see faster, more lasting results than those who only work on fears during scheduled appointments.
Exposure therapy is one of the safest psychological treatments available, with decades of research confirming its safety profile. While you will experience anxiety during exposures—that’s necessary for the treatment to work—the anxiety is temporary and occurs in a controlled, supportive environment with a trained therapist present.
The anxiety you feel during exposure is actually your brain learning that the feared situation is safe. Each time you stay in an anxiety-provoking situation until your distress naturally decreases, you’re building new neural pathways that override the fear response. This process, called habituation, typically takes 20-30 minutes per exposure.
Your therapist will never push you into situations you’re not ready for. Treatment follows a systematic hierarchy starting with mildly uncomfortable situations and gradually progressing to more challenging ones only when you’re ready. You maintain control throughout the process, and sessions are designed to be challenging but manageable. Most people find that while individual sessions can be temporarily uncomfortable, their overall anxiety decreases significantly as treatment progresses.
Many types of exposure therapy can be effectively delivered through telehealth, particularly imaginal exposure for PTSD, virtual reality exposure therapy, and certain types of response prevention work for OCD. Research shows that telehealth-delivered ERP can be as effective as in-person treatment for many conditions.
Telehealth works especially well for exposures involving technology, written exercises, or situations you can create in your home environment. For example, contamination OCD exposures might involve touching household items, while social anxiety work could include making phone calls or video interactions. Your therapist can guide you through these exercises in real-time via secure video sessions.
However, some exposures may require in-person work, particularly those involving specific locations, social situations, or physical sensations that can’t be replicated at home. The best approach often combines both formats—using telehealth for planning, processing, and some exposures, while scheduling in-person sessions for situations that require direct therapist support or specific environmental conditions.
Your first session focuses on assessment and education rather than jumping into exposures. Your therapist will ask detailed questions about your fears, avoidance patterns, compulsions, and how anxiety impacts your daily life. This isn’t just a general mental health interview—it’s a specialized assessment designed to understand the specific mechanisms maintaining your anxiety.
You’ll work together to create a fear hierarchy, ranking situations from mildly anxiety-provoking to extremely difficult. This becomes your treatment roadmap. Your therapist will also explain exactly how exposure therapy works, why temporary anxiety is necessary for long-term improvement, and what you can expect in upcoming sessions.
Many people leave the first session feeling hopeful because they finally understand why their anxiety has persisted and have a clear plan for addressing it. You might receive some initial homework assignments, like monitoring your anxiety levels or beginning to resist minor safety behaviors, but formal exposures typically don’t begin until the second or third session when you feel prepared and understand the process fully.
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