Guided Exposure

William, October 5 2023

Exposure is hard. It's also the most effective treatment for emetophobia that we know of. Bia's mission is to lower the barrier to starting exposure and help you follow through. We do this with our interactive, guided exposure activities. You can use Bia from your phone, tablet, or computer, in short sessions where ever you are comfortable.

How Does Exposure Work?

Exposure is just like practicing a musical instrument before playing on stage, except we are practicing experiencing discomfort so that when it comes in real life we are prepared with techniques and tools to handle it. Exposure works using a hierarchy of triggers, an ordered list of words, images, videos, and activities that you move through at your own pace. As you conquer each step in your hierarchy, you reduce sensitization, remove bad habits, re-wire the brain, and develop confidence and skills that apply to all aspects of life. Exposure is often paired with behavioral therapy and other insights. We like to visualize recovery as a pyramid, exposure it one part of the pyramid, but so are relationships, professional, and lifestyle changes. Exposure is proven to be effective at treating emetophobia, you control the pace and order of exposure, and vomiting is never required.

Exposure is Hard

If you've tried or considered exposure, you know it is hard. It takes immense courage for someone with phobia to face their fear. Am I doing exposure correctly? Can I do exposure too fast? Can exposure make it worse? These are all common concerns that prevent people from seeking therapy. Bia completely solves these concerns with Guided Exposure.

What is Guided Exposure?

Guided Exposure adapts to your input and automatically adjusts exercise to help you practice exposure at a pace you are comfortable with. If your discomfort goes higher than the limit you set, Bia wont show you any new content. If your discomfort spikes from a specific piece of content, Bia will present techniques to help you process and retry. If your discomfort remains flat over a long period of time, Bia will switch up the activity to help keep you engaged and check for safety behaviors. Essentially, guided exposure is the first and only tool that ensures your exposure sessions follow a structured, step-by-step approach.

How does it work?

Personalized

When you create your personalized journey with Bia, you set your discomfort start, goal, and limit. Your discomfort start is what your phobia makes you feel now. Your discomfort goal is what you imagine you would feel if you did not have any phobia. Your discomfort limit is what you are willing to experience as a part of practicing with Bia. These values act as guide rails, creating an exposure experience that is tailored to exactly what you need.

Clean and Dirty Discomfort

Bia uses the concept of clean and dirty discomfort. Clean discomfort is what anyone would experience when sick. Dirty discomfort is what our anxiety and phobia adds on top. You may have heard people say "No one likes being sick". They are referring to clean discomfort, and may have no idea of the dirty discomfort you are experiencing. Bia works to remove dirty discomfort from your life completely, by helping you to accept the clean. Can you imagine what your life would be like with only clean discomfort?

The Exposure Curve

The goal of exposure is to experience dirty discomfort and practice techniques to process it, instead of avoiding it or relying on safety behaviors. By processing dirty discomfort, we will turn it into clean discomfort, discomfort that anyone would feel doing this activity. Bia will guide you along the curve and always slow down if your discomfort goes above your limit

Your Journey

Your journey with Bia is a set of milestones. Each milestone is broken down into exercises, and each exercise is broken into phases. You control the order of the milestones and which exercises you work on. There are never any tricks, traps, or surprises. Guided exposure automatically walks you through your journey, one step at a time, slowing down when needed. If a single phase of a single exercise is challenging, Bia will help you slow down and conquer it. Every challenge is now an opportunity.

Using Bia with a Therapist

If you have experience with exposure, or are using Bia in live sessions with a therapist, guided exposure can be turned off. When off, Bia will still pause activities if your discomfort crosses your limit, but staying engaged and repeating challenging content will be up to you.

Bia's guided exposure ensures you don't move too quickly in exposure, stay with content until you conquer it, and teaches you skills to apply in life. We know everyones phobia is different, that's why guided exposure is combined with custom goals, limits, hierarchies, practice frequencies, unique daily lesson plans, and more, to make Bia a tool that adapts to your needs.

Getting Started

If you have never tried exposure before, Bia is a great starting point to see if it is for you. If you have tried exposure unsuccessfully, Bia can be a way to build good habits in short sessions. If you are in therapy, Bia provides a curated library of hundreds of words, sentences, audio clips, images, videos, and activities to ensure you fully overcome all aspects of your phobia.

It takes immense courage to face your phobia. Bia is designed to make practicing discomfort as easy as possible. You deserve a life free from phobia.

Thank you

I built Bia on the weekends for over 4 years as I went through several rounds of therapy for my lifelong emetophobia. Building Bia became my therapy, a way for me to learn about my phobia and focus on recovery. Bia transformed into a place where I could monitor my progress and visualize my growth. I started using Bia every morning, and I felt myself taking my life back from phobia. I knew it had potential to help others. Now Bia is used by people all over the world to take their life back from phobia one step at a time. I am happy to share I have recovered from emetophobia, and I believe you can too.
- Willy, follow emetophobic in recovery