Systematic Desensitization: Empirical Cure for Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia is perhaps listed as one of the most common fears of humans in this world; along with claustrophobia, hematophobia, and certain others that often leads to a person's unproductiveness and hysteria which could potentially be dangerous to the person himself and or the other people around him. Panicking are often the most conspicuous symptoms of Arachnophobia. People would immediately resolve into a state of neuroticism even if just placed or situated in a location where there is a possibility of spider presence. This fear often influence sufferers in their major decision making processes, as to where they live, or where they work, even to the kind of places they pass by out on the streets. The fear itself is a greater influence to the person who is suffering it than any other things the person experiences.

The intensity of a person's fear in spiders may depend on the consideration of the amount of trauma the person has experienced regarding spiders. The origin of the fear would more often than not take place in an individual's earlier experiences, usually in the childhood stages wherein stories of how disgusting and fearfully venomous spiders are to people, which also happens to be an urban myth since all the spider species are generally not harmful to humans at all. There may be very, very few spider species that could potentially be fatal to a human being but they are also rarely seen and are located endemically or only in specific places on earth.

Compound that with media move innovations, particularly in the fiction, horror realms of the industry which often portrays spider terrorism in a highly exaggerated perception, children viewers would often perceive the wrong information about spiders in an early age; carrying the fear eventually for the rest of their existence unless countered with another offsetting situation. Appropriate education regarding spiders is the most viable solution to the fear of them. However, they may not be as useful when the origin of fear is highly traumatic. For example, who happens to be bitten by a banana spider (see Brazilian Wandering Spider) and have survived the fatal call may live to fear spiders for the rest of his life. In that sort of cases, no amount of education will ever be sufficient to counter the fear of the individual, if ever he develops it.

Spider fear is curable. Unlike certain very severe phobias that are hard to treat, arachnophobia can be relinquished with proper process and therapy. Perhaps the most effective treatment of arachnophobia so far that are most availed as well by many people suffering from the same fear is the process of systematic desensitization. The process is actually old, innovated during 1950's by a south African scientist, Joseph Wolpe. The treatment goes by relaxing the patient upon exposure of the things that they fear most, which in this case are spiders. The outcome would be that the person who has the fear would become less sensitive over his source of fear.

The first step of the process would entail the stratification of the levels of fear triggers of the patient. The list would count starting from the most feared manifestation to the scenarios or situations with lesser responses. For example, an arachnophobic person would treat encountering a spider first hand would be the worst case scenario for him. That would then be enlisted as number one in the list rank. And if simple pictures of spiders will have milder reactions or responses, it would be enlisted then as last in the rank. Following the first step is the process of relaxing the patient as much as possible by using certain techniques in hypnotherapy and patient may relax partially to becoming totally subconscious about things around him or her.

Often the process of relaxation would entail a follow up approach of regression wherein the patient would be ask to imagine or visualize the idea of spiders in his or her head. The approach would also be inclusive of proximity visualization; imagining the image of a spider up close to a considerable distance. If the therapist would sense any particular reaction coming from the patient along the way, the treatment is then paused. The therapist would then again ask the patient to relax once and the entire process is repeated, vice versa. The goal is that eventually the patient will become overly exposed in the image in his or her mind that he or she will eventually diminish the responses later, making the person less sensitive in his or her object of fear. And then later on, he or she would be much more indifferent in imagining his or her worst case scenarios.

The process of imagining or visualizing the object of in sparring distances is called vivo exposure. The person, who happens to fear spiders, will be asked by his therapist to go and expose himself with spiders around him. He may ask the patient to go to the zoo with him and ask him to touch a tarantula, which should be most likely docile. The therapist would initially demonstrate the process to serve as basis or model to the patient and then gradually, the patient will be persuaded to the same thing the therapist did. A progressive reinforcement of assurance is often entailed in the process of exposure making the patient more confident about his fear and eventually overcome it subtly. Ultimately, the patient will then pick up the spider at his own free will.

However, the process may vary from to time depending on the degree of certain aspects of the person's fear. Reassessments and re-evaluation may have to be considered from time to time in order to make the process truly effective and efficient. Goals would be altered every once in a while to really convey the root of the fear of the patient and essentially get rid of it. The attack towards the root of fear may differ in terms of hitting the mark. Accuracy may depend as well in the amount of cooperation the patient will put forth in the treatment process.