Counter conditioning is based on the principles of classical conditioning. It attempts to substitute undesirable emotional responses to a stimulus (that is, fear of bugs) with more pleasant, adaptive ones. For illustration, do you remember Watson's experiment with Little Albert - the boy that John Watson conditioned to fear little white rats? In order to reverse the conditioning or unconditional Little Albert's response of fear to the rats, we would substitute the fear with something more pleasant that is, happiness.
How might one use counter conditioning and desensitization altogether?