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The safety behaviours that hollow out a ladder
Why a rung can be completed every week for a month and change nothing.
A safety behaviour is anything done to make a feared situation survivable that also prevents learning it was survivable anyway. They are almost invisible from outside, and they are the usual explanation when someone completes their rungs on schedule and does not improve.
What they look like
Carrying medication that is never taken. Sitting near the exit. Checking the route four times. Bringing a friend who does the talking. Holding a phone. Scanning for a bathroom on arrival. Drinking to take the edge off. Silently rehearsing sentences before saying them.
Why they matter more than the rung
The point of exposure is a violated prediction. If the prediction is "I will panic unless I sit by the door", then sitting by the door leaves it perfectly intact. The situation was faced and nothing was learned, which is worse than not going, because it costs the same effort and produces the same conclusion.
Building them into the ladder
Do not try to drop every safety behaviour at once. Put them on the ladder as rungs of their own: the same situation with the phone in a bag, then the same situation with the seat in the middle. Each is usually two or three points harder than the version with the crutch, which is exactly the spacing you want.
Reassurance counts
For families this is the hard one. "Are you sure I will be fine?" answered kindly, forty times, is a safety behaviour operated by someone else. Agreeing in advance on what the answer will be, and writing it on the plan, is usually easier than deciding in the moment.
Build the ladder
Name the fear and Bia suggests the rungs. Free, and nothing about you is sent.