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Guest blog, by Leanne
A few of you wanted to know how the London Zoo friendly spider programme (group hypnotherapy for arachnophobia) went this weekend. I know I'm not alone in having extremely frustrating and stressful encounters with eight legged things so I'll describe it in case it works for someone else. Firstly we had a talk from a psychology lecturer about phobias, how we develop them and why we can't seem to 'logic them away.' Then we had a group discussion about the specific elements of spiders that cause the reaction (most of us were OK with the idea of small pink fluffy four legged slow moving 'spiders') and how we can react before we even consciously register them (ball of fluff on the carpet?!) Then the Zoo arachnid expert talked to us about everything we've never wanted to know about spiders, including sadly how conkers, peppermint and 'ultrasonic gizmos' don't work.
Then we did a group hypnosis session with a psychologist; this basically involved relaxation techniques which will be very familiar to anyone who has sought help for insomnia etc. The idea was to consciously relax every muscle in your body from toes to head back to toes and up again. Then the hypnotist counted us down ten imagined 'steps' into a deeper state of relaxation asked us to feel how heavy our limbs were and how relaxed we were. He then told us he will count us down the last three steps and that's the depth of trance we will stay at. This was very pleasant and my limbs were very heavy and relaxed. When everyone was relaxed he encouraged us to tell ourselves that 'spiders were safe' and imagine our fear floating away. Then everybody got up and we went straight over to the zoo bug house.
Now, there were about 50 people, all of whom had rated their initial fear at 8-10 out of 10. We first looked at the spiders behind glass and everyone seemed really interested although I wasn't that keen. Then we went over to some open-lidded boxes with some FLIPPIN MASSIVE house spiders in and bizarrely most people crowded round keen to have a look. I wasn't keen - after all, there were FLIPPIN MASSIVE spiders in those boxes. Duh. Most people were happy to play with the spiders and 46 out of the 50 held the things and were calm. I can't understand what was different for them but it was life changing for those people.
Sadly I was still unhappy, very unhappy, as my hope for getting over the fear had now gone out the window. I really wanted to try and get over it so I made myself go in and poke a leg with my fingernail, it took me 70 minutes to go back in and two internal panic meltdowns and was the most stressful thing I've ever done but I poked it. I did learn a lot about the creatures and it was useful to speak to people who didn't think I was a nutcase for being scared but sadly it didn't work for me - but I was a minority. Apparently my subconscious is as stubborn as my conscious.
To non-arachnophobes, please never tell someone that 'it's ok they can't hurt you' or 'they're more scared of you' because do you honestly think that hasn't occurred to the person in question?! It only makes them more frustrated / stressed / embarrassed. Just fetch them a mallet, or - as someone creatively suggested - a flamethrower.
Al's comment: As I said above, a very honest and open encounter laced with comedy, but with a serious message. Phobias about spiders, or anything else, can seem stupid to many people. "Pull yourself together." It's the same as any anxiety condition. But it's not as simple as this and when techniques don't work it can be extremely demoralising and can set you back further than where you started from. I would question in Leanne's case exactly how many of the other 50 people have 'real' phobias - they seemed to overcome them all too easily to me. It's not easy, in reality. But that's just my opinion.
Thanks to Leanne for allowing this post.
Best wishes
Al
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