One is refraining from implementing solutions or decisions until you have clearly defined and understood your problem or situation. Another is becoming aware of emotional blocks to solving problems and making decisions. For example, procrastinating serves to protect people from facing risks. Individuals are frequently also deterred from solving practical problems because they are emotionally distracted by other difficulties that demand attention first. And people are inclined to jump at one possible solution that then acts as a blinder to seeing other potentially more promising alternatives. Behavioral therapists also believe you must realize that, often, difficulties you experience when trying to solve problems or make decisions are due to conflicts between incompatible goals or values. Sometimes one objective cannot be achieved without compromising another. They also believe you must develop abilities to imagine a wider range of alternatives. And finally, they believe you must become better able both to foresee likely personal consequences of implementing a particular solution or decision and to evaluate these in relation to what is personally most important. {180} AN EXAMPLE OF BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOTHERAPY Anne Holt was thirty-two when she came to see Dr. Cantwell. She was noticeably anxious, wringing her hands, tense, and easily startled, as when a car's exhaust backfired in the street below. She complained of feeling unloved by her husband and was always in dread of his criticisms. She also felt her mother-in-law was very critical of her. Anne wanted to get away from the house but had quit two jobs in succession, in each instance when her boss's criticism of her work upset her. Dr. Cantwell explained the rationale behind desensitization to her and taught Anne how to practice systematic muscle relaxation, beginning by tensing her hands, then relaxing them, tensing them, then relaxing them again, and doing this with her arms, shoulders, calf muscles, thighs, abdomen, jaw, neck muscles, cheek, and mouth muscles. He recorded his instructions on a tape for her to use at home. After five weeks of daily practice, Anne was usually able to relax deeply in less than a minute. Dr. Cantwell, in the meantime, had gained a clearer idea of what troubled Anne, and he had made up the following hierarchy: _Criticism directed at Anne from:_ High anxiety Her husband | His mother | A boss | Anne's mother Low anxiety Anne's neighbor