It is frequent that spiders come into contact with us and with our homes. Being so small they can enter our rooms, and stay there feeding for a while on other insects. Some species can be dangerous (although they usually live in specific territories), but for the most part they are no more than a relative nuisance or an unwanted guest for humans.

However, some people have an atrocious and excessive panic about some of these beings. These people present severe difficulties and extreme reactions to the visualization or even the evocation in the imagination of these creatures. These are people who suffer from arachnophobia .

Arachnophobia: a specific phobia

Arachnophobia is the phobia and/or extreme repulsion towards all arachnids and especially spiders. This disorder is classified as a specific phobia generated by animals. It can generate a high level of discomfort or a certain deterioration of the subject’s functionality.

Within the specific phobias it is one of the most common, and generally tends to be more prevalent in women. As a phobia, it is an intense fear that is disproportionate to the level of threat that the feared stimulus may pose, a disproportion that is recognized as irrational by the sufferer. The presence of this stimulus causes high levels of anxiety (the fear suffered can generate anxiety crises), which at a behavioural level tends to avoid or flee from the stimulus (this is the specific case of arachnophobia, of spiders).

Symptoms of arachnophobia include nausea, anxiety, sweating, tachycardia, escape and avoidance behaviors or paralysis, anxiety crises or crying spells, among others at the sight or evocation of an arachnid. In very extreme cases, even perceptual alterations may occur. Fear may also appear in advance in situations where the animal in question is likely to appear or towards the products of its actions, such as spider webs.

Causes

The causes of spider phobia have often been discussed by the various professionals who have dealt with its aetiology.

One of the most plausible hypotheses is linked to Seligman’s theory of preparation , which proposes that certain stimuli are linked to specific responses due to the genetic transmission of behavioural tendencies that may be protective for human beings. Relating this theory with the concrete case of arachnophobia the human species would have learned throughout its evolution that arachnids were dangerous and potentially mortal animals, with which the current human beings would have inherited a natural tendency to avoid them.

Another theory is based on the idea that arachnophobia originates from learning , being an acquired response that has been enhanced by a process of conditioning. The experience of a negative event related to spiders (for example, being bitten or meeting someone who died from a bite by a poisonous species), especially during childhood, causes the association of arachnids with anxiety and fear, which in turn generates avoidance as an escape mechanism, which in turn reinforces this fear.

From a biological perspective, the influence of different hormones such as noradrenaline and serotonin has been explored in regulating the level of fear felt, which could cause a socially learned or phylogenetically inherited response that most people do not have problems with to trigger extreme reactions.

Treatment of arachnophobia

The first choice treatment to combat arachnophobia is usually exposure therapy , in which the subject must be gradually exposed to a hierarchy of stimuli linked to contact with spiders. It can begin with simple stimuli such as photographs or videos, and then move on to viewing real webs and finally to the presentation of a real arachnid at different distances (and even touching it).

It is usually more effective to do this exposure live, although it can also be done in imagination if the anxiety level is very high or even introductory to a live exposure.

The use of new technologies also allows new forms of exposure, both in the case of arachnophobia and other phobias, such as exposure through virtual reality or augmented reality which allows a more tolerable and safer approach than that made live (after all, you can control the image to be displayed and the subject knows that it is not before a real spider).

It is usually useful to perform relaxation techniques in response to or in preparation for phobic stimuli, such as breathing techniques or progressive muscle relaxation , in order to reduce the level of anxiety that will be felt. In this sense, benzodiazepines may sometimes be prescribed to control the level of anxiety or panic in people in situations of frequent contact with these beings or who are immersed in exposure therapies.

Bibliographic references:

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Fifth edition. DSM-V. Masson, Barcelona.
  • Santos, J.L. ; García, L.I. ; Calderón, M.A. ; Sanz, L.J.; de los Ríos, P.; Izquierdo, S.; Román, P.; Hernangómez, L.; Navas, E.; Ladrón, A and Álvarez-Cienfuegos, L. (2012). Clinical Psychology. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR, 02. CEDE. Madrid.