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 Originally Posted by Thunder
Originally Posted by KoRnholio
Ridiculous generalization and completely wrong. People with even moderate phobias often need multiple sessions of therapy to get over them. But then again, most phobias arise to rarely that they don't interfere with one's life enough to warrant getting therapy for them.
1) Actually, it's not a generalisation, and am speaking from a position of intimate knowledge on the matter.
second, dont make the egregious mistake of ever thinking that behavior doesn't have very strong roots in genes.
Very true. But fear of a very real threat - is one thing and hard wired. This is why cows will leave you in peace when you wlak through a field alone yet will attack you if you walk with a dog, as they perceive it as a predator and a risk to their young.
2) Phobias though are not genetically linked. Nor are they hard wired for our own safety. We are pre disposed to fear lions, sharks and even human rejection, because they are naturally occuring threats to our survival. But this fear is not the same as a phobia. Consequently, we are not predisposed to be phobic about something. As said, a phobia is a learned response - an overreaction by the body's defense mechanism.
Treatments of phobias come in many shapes and sizes, but most involve desensitizing the person to the object of their fear, so that they eventually learn through repeated exposure that the object will not harm them.
3) Old school immersion therapy follows this route. Most successful interventions address the subconscious's reasons for creating the phobia in the first place. As a result, no desensitising is required. All that is needed is for that "switch" to be flicked back off. Mentally.
1) Intimate knowledge as a therapist or as a patient? If the former, you are a rare member of your profession. If the latter, you might know more than an intro psych student, but you should probably open your mind to some other views.
I'm not a therapist or a patient, but i do have a PhD in psychology, so I think I can speak intelligently on the subject.
2) Read my post above. Fear of spiders is a positive genetic adaptation. These help us propogate the species. That's why a lot more people have a phobia about spiders than a phobia about baked beans (a phobia which has been documented, btw). It makes a difference whether there is a predisposition or not. By definition, a phobia exists when a fear is irrational. In the case of spiders, the natural, adaptive fear that exists overrides the knowledge that the particular species you see crawling around in your bathtub is harmless.
3) The most successful modern therapy is behavioural. One of the steps is desensitization. This means exposing the sufferer to a gradually increasing level of anxiety-provoking stimuli so they eventually learn it is not harmful. No-one does immersion (e.g., throwing the sufferer in a room full of snakes) anymore not because it doesn't work, but because it's fucking cruel. What you're describing when you talk about the unconscious switch sounds like a Freudian approach, which is about as 'old school' and outdated as it gets. If it worked for you, great, but it's not as effective as more modern methods.
And yes, Kornholio is right. Many phobics take longer than 5-20 minutes to cure.
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Irrational fear of spiders
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