Personalizing Desensitization

I had a bit of a tough time with some of the readings I did for this week. In class last week we talked about desensitizing and teachers and students and when that might be something to explore. However, as I think about it further the how seems really important. Reading about the various ways to desensitize someone, is all well and good, but will it ever work if you do not know the full range of their prior experiences.  Desensitizing someone who is afraid of snakes but has never actually seen one in person may be very different than desensitizing someone who has be bitten by a snake before.  Similarly, in a classroom setting each student’s experiences with reading may be vastly different. While I get the idea that some methods generally work better than others, I worry that if you try to re-introduce an activity too soon, before fully desensitizing a child, it may set you back even further, and any progress they may will be lost. How do you know when desensitization has worked? How can you start to plan the process of desensitization for a student? While I appreciated the readings for their content I felt that they were woefully lacking in practicality and consideration of individual experience. Maybe this is covered in other readings I have not gotten to yet, but for now, what are other people’s thoughts on desensitization in practice? Have you tried it before?