Almost 40% of us are afraid of spiders. For what ? Where does this fear come from? How does it manifest? How to manage it on a daily basis? Answers with Evelyne Josse, clinical psychologist.
What is the name of the fear of spiders?
There’s the small fear, discomfort, unease. And there is also the crippling phobia, I named arachnophobia, or the terrible fear of spiders. Fear of their particular form, fear of the bite, of their venom.
Where does the fear of spiders come from?
The fear of spiders is innateaccording to the conclusions of a study published by German, Austrian and Swedish researchers in the scientific journal Frontiers in Psychology which dates from 2017. These researchers scrolled through a series of images in front of babies 6 months to study their reaction. Images of flowers, fish, snakes and spiders. They observed that babies’ pupils dilated more, as a sign of stress, when pictures showed snakes and spiders and concluded that this fear was innate. The psychologist explains:when we face danger, our sympathetic system activates to enable us to flee or to fight. Pupil dilation is a sign of this physiological stress response. We therefore have, innately, a kind of detector that allows us to spot certain dangers without ever having been confronted with them before, and without anyone having taught us to be wary of them.“But while we are born with an innate fear of spiders, not all of us are phobic about them.
► What explains arachnophobia? This may be due to “there misunderstanding of the world of spiders“, continues the professional. This is also true more generally for all types of insects.
► The origin of this phobia can also stem from a experience experienced as very stressful or dangerous related to spiders. A sting for example or so “jI remember a patient who had been traumatized by the sight of a tarantula in a glazed entomology box brought back by one of her classmates when she was a child. That was the trigger for his phobia“, describes Evelyne Josse. “Home environment and learning also play an important role in the transmission of phobias“, continues the specialist. Parents who have a phobia can easily pass it on to their children.
► Lack of control is a common denominator for many phobias. This is exactly the behavior of spiders, which appear unexpectedly, circulate at night, camouflage themselves, are unpredictable…
► Finally, the representation we have spiders in movies, books, explains these phobias. “They are often giant portrayed as mean or dangerousdevouring human beings, observing them with a deceitful eye…”describes the specialist.
Hypnosis, EMDR, behavioral and cognitive therapies work well for arachnophobia
Someone who is afraid of spiders usually feels disgust and apprehension. On the other hand, someone who has a phobia of spiders has a disproportionate emotional response compared to reality. “She can suffer fromanxiety, dizziness, headache, nausea, hot flashes, even fainting“, says Evelyne Josse. In the most extreme cases, this phobia can even prove to be very disabling or even dangerous: “some people refuse to enter a room if there is a spider, others will be completely paralyzed“, describes the specialist. “If the spider appears and the phobic person is driving, it can be very dangerous“, she continues.
Fortunately, there are solutions. “Hypnosis, EMDR, behavioral and cognitive therapies work well against arachnophobia“, specifies Evelyne Josse who will unravel this fear with these patients, until it is no longer paralyzing. “It’s a vicious circle. I see a spider, I panic, someone removes it, I feel calm. But suddenly for my brain, if I feel this appeasement, it is that I had good reasons to be afraid and therefore I will be more and more afraid with each confrontation“, she describes. “It is for this reason that I do not recommend talk-based therapy to fight a phobia“, she concludes.
Thanks to Evelyne Josse, clinical psychologist lecturer at the University of Lorraine (Metz).