A
female
age
30-35,
*m9hi
writes:Hi,this isnt really the kind of questions you ask on this site but i was wondering if anyone could tell me how to overcome my Arachnophobia.Its terrible, when i see a spider i cry, scream and take panic attacks. Im terrified when im in the house myself incase i see one, i had to fone my mum home from work because there was a small spider in my kitchen, they make me shake and i cant forget that iv seen it, is there anything a can do to over my fear, or would i have to go get hypnotised?Thanks for any help you can give :) Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Emilysanswers +, writes (29 July 2009):
I am scared of spiders but I am STARTING to get over it.
Start with money spiders - the ones the size of ants. Next time you see one, try and take a look at it closely.
Also, just remember that most of the thin spiders are basically just daddy long legs minus the wings.
If you can take a breath and deal with the small and useless looking ones then the bigger ones won't appear so frightning.
I still hate them but I know that between me and the vaccume cleaner, I can deal with it.
Good Luck!! xx
A
reader, anonymous, writes (29 July 2009): Phobias are treated by desensitisation therapy, which involves exposing you to your object of fear for gradually increasing periods of time. The idea being that you eventually become less scared of whetever it is. It works.
I used to have a terrible phobia of knives (not entirely irrational - if one of them is propelled in the wrong direction, it can do a lot of damage) which is slowly but surely getting easier as a result of same. As in, I'm not in love with the things, but can now co-exist in the same room as one without having a panic attack.
Good luck
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A
male
reader, Beingblack +, writes (29 July 2009):
 I used to live with a model, who was terrified of spiders like you are. She could drape snakes (I mean the big pythons) all over herself for a photoshoot, she wing-walked once for a 'telethon' fundraiser, and pranced around central London in her underwear during the rush hour. Things that most people would not dream of doing. Yet a simple house spider sent her close to a brain hemorrhage.She realised that her fear was completely irrational, but that doesn't help to overcome it. She needed counselling in learning to control her fear. Basically, she sat in a room with a spider in a box. She couldn't see the spider, but knew it was there. That was enough to start her fear. By the end of the counselling, she could not handle a tarantula, but she didn't mind if it was five feet away. These things take time, and address your fears. It has something to do with the spiders legs, its unpredictable movement and other stuff I think, this was many years ago.It is not easy, but with some effort it can be overcome.
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reader, anonymous, writes (29 July 2009): I don't think hypnotisim would work. However, you can easily get over this if you look up the services of a behavioral psychologist or therapist.
There is a therapy for this that helps you learn to calm yourself in the presence of the thing you fear. It starts out small with you just thinking about a spider and takes you through a series of steps till you can be calm with the spider in the room.
I am terribly afraid of wasps because I got stung in the eye as a kid when one got stuck in my hair, and I still run from them, but in all fairness they can sting you.
A spider won't hurt you, they can bite, but if you can learn a recognize the different spiders, most of them will not be poisonous, most won't bite, most just want to come in where it is cool, they like the moderate temperatures in your house is all.
Any way try the desensitization therapy, it will work for you, it is a proven therapy for phobias.
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A
male
reader, Red Green 0289  +, writes (29 July 2009):
That's OK, you need someone to work with you on this... I'd suggest a councillor who specialises in phobias. The process should be safe and simple, talk about why your scared of them, and get used to the idea that one day you're going to see one. It's important that you get over this, as it could hold you back.The process is simple and people work though this kind of stuff fairly quickly with someone that trust in a safe environment... learning to not fear spiders is a lot easier than learning to not fear flying... good luck!
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (29 July 2009): Hypnotising is the only fast effective way to get over it that I know of. Otherwise it's a long slow process (which I went through, I used to be horribly afraid of spiders. I won't even tell you the horror stories of spider encounters that made me so scared!). To start with, I started to look at spiders trapped safely in jars, after other people had caught them for me (we couldn't kill them in my house because of my brother thinking it's cruel). After doing that for a while, I started to be able to look at them in jars without being scared, even the really big ones. Then I started to be able to control my fear when it came to small, harmless spiders. I still couldn't catch a big one, or even kill a big one, but I do get a lot less scared now. I think if you go get hypnotised and then do things like familiarising yourself with spiders in jars, you should be ok :)
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