Imaginal flooding
Imaginal Flooding is used to refer to this procedure, a type of in vivo therapy in which a phobic individual is exposed through imagination to the most feared object or situation for an extended period without an opportunity to escape. In vivo exposure is a method quite similar to systematic desensitization that requires actual exposure of the client to the anxiety-producing situations. In vivo exposure is more effective than simply imagining anxiety-producing situations, most of the clients initially begins with imagination and eventually move to actually experiencing feared situations. During in vivo exposure, the woman would actually experience each of the situations on her list, beginning with the least feared one, with the coaching of the therapist. The specific learning process operating in in vivo exposure may be extinction. Exposing oneself to a fear arousing stimulus and discovering that nothing bad happens extinguishes the conditioned fear response.