Arachnophobia: causes and symptoms of extreme fear of spiders

Some people experience an unjustified sense of panic before these small arthropods.

Spiders often come into contact with us and our homes. and our homes. Being so small, they can enter our rooms and stay there feeding for a while on other insects. Some species can become dangerous (although they tend to live in specific territories), but for the most part they are only a relative nuisance or an unwanted guest for humans.

However, some people have an atrocious and excessive panic with respect to 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 suffering from arachnophobia..

Arachnophobia: a specific phobia

The arachnophobia is the phobia and/or extreme repulsion towards the set of the 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 the female sex. As a phobia, it is an intense and disproportionate fear with respect to the level of threat that the that the feared stimulus in question may pose, a disproportion that is recognized as irrational by the sufferer. The presence of this causes high levels of anxiety (the fear suffered can generate anxiety crises), so that at the behavioral level there is a tendency to avoid or flee from the stimulus (this is the specific case of arachnophobia, of spiders).

The symptoms of arachnophobia include nausea, anxiety, sweating, tachycardia, escape and avoidance behaviors or paralysis, anxiety crises or crying attacks, among others, at the sight or evocation of an arachnid. In very extreme cases there may even be perceptual disturbances. Fear can also appear in anticipation in situations in which 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 etiology.

One of the most plausible hypotheses is linked with Seligman's priming theorywhich proposes that certain stimuli are linked to specific responses due to the genetic transmission of behavioral tendencies that may be protective for the human being. Relating this theory to the specific case of arachnophobia, the human species would have learned throughout its evolution that arachnids were potentially deadly dangerous animals, so that current humans would have inherited a natural tendency to avoid them.

Another theory is based on the idea that arachnophobia that arachnophobia originates from learning, being an acquired responsebeing 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 knowing someone who died after being bitten by a venomous species), especially during childhood, provokes the association of arachnids with anxiety and fear, which in turn generates avoidance as an escape mechanism, which in turn reinforces the fear.

From a Biological perspective, the influence of different hormones, such as noradrenal different hormones such as noradrenaline and serotonin in regulating the level of fear. 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 provoke extreme reactions.

Treatment of arachnophobia

The treatment of first choice for arachnophobia is usually exposure therapy. is usually exposure therapyThe subject must be gradually exposed to a hierarchy of stimuli related to contact with spiders. It can start with simple stimuli such as photographs or videos, and then progress to the viewing of real spider webs and finally to the presentation of a real arachnid at different distances (with the possibility of touching it).

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

The use of new technologies also allows new exposure modalities, 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 the live one (after all, the image to be visualized can be controlled and the subject knows that he/she is not in front of a real spider).

It is often useful to use relaxation techniques before the phobic stimulus or in preparation for it, such as breathing techniques or progressive muscle relaxation. or progressive muscle relaxationin order to reduce the level of anxiety that will be felt. In this sense, benzodiazepines can 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.