I have gotten over a myriad of things through the form of desensitization, but not only through desensitization alone, as I rely very heavily on the use of logic to overcome irrational fears.
Desensitization can help- being exposed to something until it becomes familiar, but for me the real break through came when I was able to reason through the fear, control my breathing and think my way out of mental entrapments.
The way that I see it, the brain can create feedback loops, similar to the idea of Eternal Recurrence "eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. The concept is found in Indian philosophy and in ancient Egypt and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics. With the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse in the western world, though Friedrich Nietzsche resurrected it as a thought experiment to argue for amor fati.
In addition, the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence was addressed by Arthur Schopenhauer. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. Time is viewed as being not linear but cyclical."
-wikipedia
In this sense, thought patterns tend to come back or repeat, until they are properly dealt with. In my case, I experienced severe anger and depression from an event that happened shortly after high school. I also suffered from low self-esteem in relationships due to experiences as a child. Every time something triggered that fear or anger or self-hatred, a loud voice in my head would repeat self-defeating phrases over and over again. I would find myself in the dark listening to the same depressing songs over and over again. I would not be able to muster energy to go out and be with friends, or if I did I drank way too much. I thought that the world was an evil place, where people were just looking to hurt others. Since learning more about personality types and observing human behavior I realized that this was not the case. But, knowledge, armed with the logic to cut through my raw emotions was ultimately what saved me. Being "desensitized"- seeing the evils of the world, just depressed me or made me numb. Numbness helped lead to a state where I was able to develop logic and reasoning, but numbness alone would just subside and eventually lead back to fear and negative thoughts- because numbness is an emotional state too.
If you are just "desensitized" it is not solving the root of the problem. It will come back. The best thing to do is to address it rationally, find the root of the problem and create an argument against it.
An example with spiders- say every time you hear the word spider you freak out and jump. Certainly, spiders can be harmful to us as humans, but is it rational to become hysterical upon hearing the word uttered- no. So we have to calmly face our fears in addition to becoming more worldly and experienced.
