Page 59 - The Power to Change Anything

48 INFLUENCER

touching a six-foot nocturnal predator. In Bandura’s case, he
asked subjects to watch the therapist handle a snake in order
to see what happened.
Bandura asked subjects to watch from the doorway of the
room—or if that was still too difficult, to watch through glass—
as the therapist walked into the room containing the snake, took
a look at it, opened the terrarium, petted the snake, and finally
removed the boa and placed it on his or her lap. After the sub-
jects watched someone else handle the snake, Dr. Bandura
then asked them to follow similar steps. First they had to sim-
ply walk into the room.
But this wasn’t enough to put everyone at ease. Some of the
subjects asked for protective gear—hockey goalie gloves, a
baseball catcher chest protector and mask, and so on. Now,
dressed like a samurai warrior, subjects entered the room and
stood next to the enclosed tank. Gradually, after several tries
they worked up to removing the terrarium cover and then
quickly retreated from the room. No harm done. After a bit
more experience, they finally touched the snake. Later still they
touched the snake without gloves and so forth. Eventually sub-
jects sat in the room by themselves with the six-foot constric-
tor draped across their lap.
And now for the real miracle: The entire process took only
three hours! People who had been debilitated most of their lives
by a paralyzing fear were completely “cured” in a single morn-
ing. And the results lasted a lifetime. Once the phobics had a
personal and positive interaction with the snake, they never
regressed, and it improved their lives forever.
In Dr. Bandura’s own words, “It was surprising to see how
liberating it was for the subjects to be freed from the phobia.
Their whole life seemed to open up before them now that they
didn’t have to worry about snakes. In addition, they gained con-
fidence about their ability to make personal changes. Since
they had been able to conquer their fear of snakes, perhaps now
they could overcome other problems.”