How A Psychotherapist Copes With Her Spider Phobia

How A Psychotherapist Copes With Her Spider Phobia

Lisa Bradburn Lisa Bradburn

Lisa Bradburn

My expertise in program delivery, product management, agile coaching, and psychotherapy enables me to create holistic and transformative experiences that help individuals and organizations achieve their full potential.

发布日期: 2021年6月14日
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Are you terrified of giant black creepy crawlies? Here’s how I’m learning to confront and make peace with the eight-legged arachnid.

One evening at the dinner table, a spider ran across the kitchen ceiling above my dad’s head. I was shy eighteen months old, seated in my high chair diagonal to him. My mom mentioned the spider to my dad, and he jumped up to fetch the fly swatter. Unfortunately, when he whacked the spider and missed, the arachnid fell directly down his shirt.

You have never seen a grown man fly into such wild hysterics, my dad, the strong protector, now reduced to a screaming mess. What I witnessed that night left a deep imprint in my young brain and henceforth instilled a terrible lifetime phobia of spiders.

Now at forty-five years of age, I am ready to confront my arachnophobia and remove crippling and debilitating anxieties. I hope to inspire others in their eight-legged fear-fuelled journey so that we may live our lives in ultimate freedom.

Top American Phobias

According to public.tableau.com, the top five phobias in America are:

  1. Glossophobia/fear of public speaking — 74% of the population.
  2. Necrophobia/fear of death — 68% of the population.
  3. Arachnophobia/fear of spiders — 31% of the population.
  4. Nyctophobia/fear of the dark — 11% of the population.
  5. Acrophobia/fear of heights — 10% of the population.

In 2019, the population of the United States was 328.2 million people. So, in theory, we are looking at a whopping 101.7 million people who suffer from a fear of spiders. And of the 31%, public.tableau.com reports 80% are women, equating to 81.7 million American females. The numbers are staggering.

What Is Acacnophobia?

Medicinenet.com describes arachnophobia as:

An abnormal and persistent fear of spiders. Sufferers from arachnophobia experience undue anxiety, even though they realize that the risk of encountering a spider and being harmed by it is small or nonexistent.

Psycom.net offers us more profound clues into why such a large percentage of the population suffers from anxiety over spiders:

Arachnophobia comes from the Greek word for spider, which is “arachne,” and “phobos,” the Greek word for fear. This extreme fear of spiders and other eight-legged arachnids (like scorpions) may actually be an evolutionary response: spiders, specifically poisonous ones, have long been linked to illness and infections.

Unrealistic Cultural References To Spiders

There is little wonder fear is instilled in our public consciousness. Cultural references and Hollywood’s portrayal of spider behavior, while wholly inaccurate, supports the evolutionary response of severe illness and death from a spider encounter. Consider the plot of the 1990 film Arachnophobia with Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. IMDB.com summarizes:

A large spider from the jungles of South America is accidently transported in a crate with a dead body to America where it mates with a local spider. Soon after, the residents of a small California town disappear as the result of spider bites from the deadly spider offspring. It’s up to a couple of doctors with the help of an insect exterminator to annihilate these eight legged freaks before they take over the entire town.

One cannot escape the overwhelming television and film references to the unrealistic dangers of spiders. However, when we consider our approach from a place of logic rather than emotion, spiders are terrified of humans. They want to remove themselves from our presence as fast as possible.

Causes Of Arachnophobia

Psycom.net got to the heart of my fear’s origin story when I was eighteen months old:

As with other phobias, arachnophobia can develop in a person because she sees the reaction to spiders of others with the phobia. For them, it’s a learned response — it makes an impression when they see a family member shriek in terror and run out of the house at the very sight of a cobweb.

Children are impressionable, and we learn behaviors from our parents. Unfortunately, I absorbed my dad’s fear and made it my own.

Growing Up With Arachnophobia

My fear of spiders has always been persistent in my life. From infanthood to fourteen, we had a permanent campsite on Moira Lake, Madoc, Ontario. There were no flushable toilets; only outhouses darted along the edge of extensive freshwater swamps. However, the outhouses housed far more than human waste; giant dock spiders inhabited the interior and hung on the walls watching people do their business.

The outhouses terrified me. As a child, I refused to go inside without a parent checking every nook and cranny. Sometimes my anxiety became so extreme; I wet my pants. Or, on another occasion, I decided to use the washroom in the woods, only to discover later one of our camping neighbors saw me and reported back to my mom. I wanted to die of shame.

Last Week’s Encounter

Since moving two hours east of Toronto, Ontario, to Rice Lake in the picturesque Northumberland County, I face spiders every day. However, my fear is not in the measly little fellas — no. In particular, I am terrified of arachnid larger than a quarter, with black, hairy legs.

Last week my trauma culminated. Around 10:00 PM, I climbed the wrought iron staircase to my loft and saw something significant move fast across the pine floors, our tabby cat Oliver hot on its trail. Initially, I thought the thing was a mouse given the size, yet, my gut feeling told me otherwise. An instant flash of terror and sweat waved over me. The being fled behind my clothes hamper, and I froze, knowing that if I took even one peak, I would have a difficult time sleeping in my bedroom forever. With this in mind, I texted my mom to rescue me.

And indeed, the large black entity was as predicted — a wolf spider the size of a cigarette pack. This type of spider is quite common in Southern Ontario and lives along with fresh bodies of water. When my mother swatted the beast, he jumped near two feet in the air. After a few more hits, the unwanted guest met his end.

Living in the country means large spiders are unavoidable. So what am I going to do, stop going down to the water? No longer sleep in my bed? Live my life paralyzed with fear? No, thank you.

Desensitization Strategies

There are many methods of reducing or removing the debilitating effects of arachnophobia, depending on the severity of the condition. Here are some common strategies employed by psychologists and psychotherapists:

  • Cultivate personal curiosity with spiders. Actively seek them out, begin to research the different types. You can even download an early version of a mobile app called “Spiders identifier App by Photo, Camera 2020” from the Google PlayStore.
  • When you discover a spider, play with the space between yourself and your new friend. How close can you get to the spider? Feel the sensations within your body. Continue to practice the exercise each time you happen to cross paths with one. Over time you may find yourself becoming more comfortable with the spider's presence.
  • Discuss your phobia with your family and friends, ask them to support you in your journey, and exercise patience with you.
  • Relaxation techniques and meditation always help. For example, when you encounter a spider, remember to breathe deeply to oxygenate your body and calm the central nervous system.
  • Seek out a psychologist or psychotherapist specializing in Systematic Desensitization, a behavioral intervention in which clients vividly imagine themselves experiencing a series of progressively more threatening fear-evoking situations while engaging in muscle relaxation exercises. PsychologyToday.com may offer a range of therapists who engage in Systematic Desensitization as part of their practice.
  • In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the therapist tries to replace the negative automatic thoughts associated with spiders with more rational thoughts. CBT is a popular modality with many therapists specializing in the approach. A quick google search or PsychologyToday.com will provide a list of practitioners in your area.
  • For deep trauma, EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, was initially developed in 1987 to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Today the practice is gaining in popularity and can be used to treat phobias. To find a licensed practitioner in the United States, consult the EMDR International Association or The EMDR Institute. If you live in Canada, I highly recommend Robin Long, EMDR Practitioner, and Psychotherapist, at [email protected]. Please note — my referral is not a part of an affiliate program.

Given the severity of my lifelong arachnophobia, I am embarking upon a combination of approaches, starting with sparking personal curiosity, educating myself on the various types of spiders, followed by my preference and previous experience with undertaking EMDR trauma therapy.

Even writing this story was a form of desensitization therapy. While researching arachnophobia, I continued to look at pictures of large, black spiders of all varieties online. My heartbeat rose, and sweat glands perspired simply from observing pictures, yet I persevered. Daily exposure will start to subdue my overall irrational fears towards our eight-legged friends.

If you or anyone you know suffers from arachnophobia, I hope you will find inspiration from my journey and find assistance to support you in your journey.

Resources

For further reading about various clinical arachnophobia studies and psychotherapeutic approaches, consult the following resources:

The story was originally published on Medium 06-12-2021

Lisa Bradburn is transitioning into an Agile Coach and is a Gestalt Psychotherapist-In-Training. She writes about the intersection of technology and the human condition. Follow Lisa on Medium.




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