Spider Phobia

If the following little tale makes you want to scream – or even sends a shiver down your spine – you might consider paying me a visit at Leeds Hypnotherapy Clinic.
…Only last week I was picking up toys from the living room floor when what I thought was a large rubber spider came to life. I can’t deny it made me jump as it scuttled off under the sofa. But my reaction was caused by the unexpected movement and not because I’m scared of real spiders. I don’t have a spider phobia.

There are, though, a lot of people who ARE afraid of spiders

Some of them are terrified – so much so that their lives are made a misery. They have a phobia of spiders.
Bad news then if they happened to have read a headline in the Yorkshire Evening Post last week: “Huge spiders are invading Leeds homes”. Reporter Alex Evans revealed that at the moment we’re in what he calls Spider Season – that’s the mating season for our eight-legged chums – and, apparently, thanks to the warm summer they’ve been at it like hammer and tongs since mid-August this year.
The Yorkshire Evening Post article is accompanied by a series of pictures sent in by readers – and I have to say some of those spiders look as big as spuds – not the sort of thing anyone with arachnophobia will want to looking at before bedtime.
But, happily, Alex provides a few helpful tips on how to keep the beasts at bay… tips that include drawing a bold chalk line around your bed because apparently spiders don’t like chalk. So teachers at least should sleep easy this September. I wonder, though…As I shifted my sofa in search of my own runaway spider I found no trace of my spider but there were at least two stumps of chalk from the toy box lying on the floor as if mocking all journalistic advice. Or maybe that was why my spider had fled the scene?
Anyhow, such conundrums aside, what I need to say, as a therapist, is that people need not be fearful – arachnophobia (spider phobia) – is like other phobias and can be treated.

Spider Phobia treatment at Leeds Hypnotherapy Clinic

At Leeds Hypnotherapy Clinic, I have successfully treated numerous clients for their spider phobia using a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and clinical hypnosis. And I always start by explaining to clients that phobias are rooted not in what individuals perceive as being the cause of their anxiety but by the fear of their anxiety being triggered. In other words they are scared of being scared.
It’s not always an easy concept to grasp but essentially phobias including spider phobia’s arise from conditioned anxiety about being anxious and can be treated by providing insight, changing perceptions and allowing an individual to think rationally. Hypnosis integrates this new-found understanding into the unconscious. More details can be found on my website.
At the end of treatment, a client who has come to me with arachnophobia is able to hold a spider in his or her hand and not be scared – assuming, of course, I can find a spider – but at this time of the year, that’s not too difficult.