Use of flooding (classic conditioning) technique in real life – a case study
This is a real case study of how we implemented and used flooding technique described in psychology.
Our granddaughter visited us with our daughter and son-in-law. We found that her hair were not in proper shape (she is appx. 2 years old), so we were curious and asked about it and we came to know that she is afraid of haircut and cries a lot, they tried cutting her hairs in saloon as well as in the house but all efforts were in vain.
Being a psychologist, I was curious in taking this case, and the best and most suitable technique was to use flooding technique where – we systematically exposed her to the situation.
First we bought a plastic kids doctor kit for her to play with – she was quite OK to get familiar with it, so slowly we started showing her various instruments in it and how they are used, so there was a small plastic scissor in the set and we purposely told her that it is used for haircut.
In the second phase we showed her – how it is used, basically my daughter doing my haircut, we found she is watching it carefully. So some percent of fear about scissor is reduced. We carried this exercise almost for a week and one day asked her if she wants to do a haircut. She was OK but sat there only for few seconds and ran away, we continued the same again for 4 – 5 days and found that now she is not running away
In the third phase we bought a small real scissor, and showed her how to cut a small hair above ears, we also asked her to touch the and feel the cut hairs and asked her to throw those in dustbin and found she is enjoying it, same thing continued and we were successful in removing her fear.
In the fourth phase, we called a hair dresser at our house, to start we played some of her favorite videos on TV, so her mood was good and with the good mood hair dresser was successful in doing her first formal / professional haircut
In the fifth phase we went in saloon, first my haircut followed by hers – and things went smooth, now that her fear is gone and the problem is solved.
This technique can also be used during many trainings like – potty, school, swimming etc….
As told by
Shri Deshpande ( Psychologist, THE COUNSELING CENTER, PUNE)
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