Desensitization training is great if it (a) works and (b) is less bad than the problem it’s meant to solve.
(I’m now imagining Alice and Carol’s conversation: “So, alright, I’ll turn my music down this time, but there’s this great program I can point you to that teaches you to be okay with loud noise. It really works, I swear! Um, I think if you did that, we’d both be happier.”)
Treating thin-skinned people (in all senses of the word) as though they were already thick-skinned is not the same, I think. It fails criterion (a) horribly, and does not satisfy (b) by definition: it is the problem desensitization training ought to solve.
Desensitization training is great if it (a) works and (b) is less bad than the problem it’s meant to solve.
(I’m now imagining Alice and Carol’s conversation: “So, alright, I’ll turn my music down this time, but there’s this great program I can point you to that teaches you to be okay with loud noise. It really works, I swear! Um, I think if you did that, we’d both be happier.”)
Treating thin-skinned people (in all senses of the word) as though they were already thick-skinned is not the same, I think. It fails criterion (a) horribly, and does not satisfy (b) by definition: it is the problem desensitization training ought to solve.