Arachnophobia

[Harvestman]

It seems that many of the tough, rugged, outdoorsy types on here are terrified of spiders, or at least have a serious aversion to them.

Now, before I start, let me say that genuine arachnophobia is a serious thing, like any other phobia, and should not be mocked, dismissed, or taken lightly. It can be treated, but really only by someone experienced in dealing with phobias. That's not me. I may engage in a little gentle teasing from time to time, but I get no enjoyment from upsetting or frightening anyone who is genuinely afraid of spiders. That would be the same as shutting a claustrophobic person in a broom cupboard. Not funny.

On the other hand, I think there are a lot of people for whom the aversion to spiders is more of a learned response (such as from parents or siblings) or rooted in unfamiliarity, and this aversion is relatively simple to deal with. For those interested in trying to overcome their fear of nervousness, follow the following steps. However, if you feel your aversion is a full-blown phobia, then I can only advise that you seek more professional advice.

At about this time of year, the garden spiders come out. They are big, easy to handle, and slow. Best of all they are very common. Go into your garden, or local park, or local hedgerow/waste ground patch, and look for one of these.

Colours vary from all shades of brown, to orange, or grey, and pink ones are not unknown, but the white cross pattern on the body is consistent regardless. Body size is up to about thumbnail size, maybe a bit more. The web is large and circular.

You can catch them in one of two ways:
1. Towards dusk they emerge from their hiding places and sit out in the middle of their webs. You can catch them in a jam jar just by putting it over them, and putting the lid on.
2. Hold an open umbrella upside down below the web and shake the vegetation (or bash it quickly with a thin stick). When disturbed the spider will drop to the ground, landing on your umbrella (or you can use a sheet or something on the ground). They tend to play dead so they stay still curled up in a ball for a while. Even if they start running, they are not very quick, so it is easy to get a jam jar over them.

If need be, get a friend to do all this for you. Having a more confident friend with you throughout these steps is a great help.

The end product should be a spider in a jam jar.
Now, don't worry about the spider. It can sit in a sealed jar for at least 24 hours without ill effects, probably longer if you don't leave it in direct sunlight.

The rest of the process is simple exposure. You know it can't hurt you as it is in a jar.

Put the jar in the room with you. If you can't even manage that, you probably have a genuine phobia and should stop following my advice here and ask a professional.
Gradually bring the jar closer, only moving it closer to yourself when you are comfortable with it.
When it is next to you, leave it there a while until it become familiar. Keep looking at it. If you do all this whilst furiously ignoring it you won't get any benefit.
When you are ready, pick the jar up.
Have a good look at your spider. Look at its markings, the patterns of hairs, the way it makes silk, the way it behaves. Notice that by this time it has probably given up trying to get out and has taken shelter under the lid of the jar.

Then you have to get it out.

You will need a bucket, box, or steep-sided tray. Something with no lid, but steep sides so the spider can't just run out. Plastic or glass is best as spiders find it harder to climb those. They will climb wood with great ease. Keep a lid handy in case you need to cover it up for a while.

Now, when you try to get the spider out of the jar, there is a catch. The spider has probably laid silk lines all through the jar, so will be able to climb out instantly. It may well swing on a line, so it is best to open the jar directly above the container you want the spider to go into. Try to do this step yourself. If you miss, remember you can just catch it in the jar again.

Once you have your spider in its new home, you can look at it again, only this time there is nothing between you and it. Have a soft brush handy so that if the spider does look like climbing out you can brush it back down into the bottom of the container.

Next step is to touch it. Start with a hind leg. The spider will run away, possibly suddenly, which can be startling. The important bit to get out of this is that you didn’t get hurt. Repeat several times until you are confident doing it. Then try touching other legs, or perhaps gently on the body (spiders are soft-bodied and squash easily, so be careful).

If you can manage this, then you are ready to hold your spider. Before we do this, a word about spider bites.

In the UK there are perhaps 2 dozen species of spiders capable of biting through human skin, sufficient for it to hurt. None are in any way considered dangerous to humans unless you happen to be allergic to their venom, which is exceptionally unusual. More to the point, virtually all UK species are extremely reluctant to bite, and will only do so as a last resort when trapped and being squeezed. A spider just stood on a hand or arm will not bite.

The species that I advise doing this with is notoriously placid and reluctant to bite, but even the big fast leggy house spider won’t bite when handled unless you squash them.

So, scoop up your spider with your jam jar or a small plastic bowl, and when you are ready, tip it onto your hand. Make sure you are ready for this step before you do it. Don’t rush to this point. You should not be handling the spider unless you want to.

Make sure you have your hand over the large container, because the spider may well run straight off your hand and leap into space. If it does, just retrieve it and try again.

It is a good idea to roll your sleeves up before handling the spider. Spiders grip cloth well, and you may find it heading rapidly up your arm towards your shoulder, which you may not be ready for. And you don’t want it going up inside your sleeve. A friend is useful here for taking the spider off you if it heads up your arm towards you.

With the spider on your hand, as it crawls, you should be able to let it crawl from hand to hand. You may drop it (accidentally or deliberately) as often as you like, but you will soon see that a walking spider just tickles. Nothing more. You may notice that it lays a silk line across your skin as it goes, as a safety line in case it falls. By this point your spider should be pretty tired, so should be slow and easy to handle.

At some point you will realise that you are handling a spider, with no ill effects. I won’t say you are cured, but you should certainly be less afraid. You can repeat this process with other sorts of spiders, which may initially be more difficult to handle (perhaps because they are faster), but the process and the results should be the same.

I should say that I have done this many, many times, typically with children, and it works. There is a gradual transition from fear to fascination that I love watching. I did this with a HUGE house spider a few years ago at a Children’s BBC event, and it worked. That was about the biggest, fastest, scariest spider you can find in the UK, and children went from terrified to holding it within a few minutes.

So, give it a go. Try it, you might find you like it. And if you don’t , you can stop the process at any time. I don’t expect to turn people into spider-lovers like me, but I do think we should be trying to show our children what interesting and harmless animals UK spiders are.

 

[British Red]

Brilliant post. I don't think I can bring myself to do it...but I've read the post with interest and can see the logic of gradually increased exposure.

Thanks for taking the time and I intend to mull this over

 

[Dreadhead]

My fear is them getting in my hair, where they shall no doubt have a wonderful existance for many years. The joy of living on a boat where i can currently see 20+ of them! I spend each morning getting them all out of the way from my work space so i don't have any getting in my way. at least they are mostly wee ones. never bothered me so much in africa, but then i didn't have my hair back then

 

[Harvestman]

It's actually quite a rewarding thing to do. Not because you suddenly discover the wonders of spiders, but the sense of pride and relief you get from overcoming the fear. You feel better.

 

[mountainm]

I was forced to get over it by a sister who was petrified of them - when I was a kid I'd regularly get called in to remove moths, spiders and Daddy long legs. Then having kids (who I wanted to teach to marvel at all creatures) forces your hand even further. Now when there's a spider it becomes a bit of an occassion. We catch him in a jar. The boys get to study him. Then I place him outside where he can sneak back in later when SWMBO isn't watching.

Oddly it's the speedy ones I still don't like much. I can handle big tarantulas (and have done) because I know where they are. Saying this I still pick them up.

 

[Harvestman]

The speedy ones are like all sprinters. They tire easily, so you can quite quickly get them to the point where they are as easy to handle as the slow orb spiders. I just prod them repeatedly in a container until they stop running away quickly. That's what I did with the big one at the BBC event. I had 5 year olds holding it, and it was as big as both their hands together.

 

[Gray]

Been away glamping with my little girl for a couple of days and used my czech bed roll. Well i've just undone it to wash the sheet and found 4 dead spiders in it, squashed. Give me a shiver to think they've been crawling around in there whist i was asleep.

 

[Marmite]

Great thread and great ideas. We used to have a big (house/wolf spider, who knows [sorry harvestman I know they're probably a world apart]) that lived above the mirror cabinet in the bathroom and although it sounds nuts having a chat with him/her (George) every morning for the three months he stayed helped chill me out no end.
The only times that I pause now are when once in a while when sitting on the couch in the front room one of the big house spiders falls of the exposed beams in the roof normally landing on your head then running down your face or shoulder (have to admit to tensing for a second or two while the brain works out what just dropped on me and if they run down your neck into you t-shirt then it gets very tense till I can get it off) but generally scooping them up in a tumbler to have a good look is the order of the day then putting them out into the garden so they can sneak back in on there own.
It's funny how the few friends its happened to always look apprehensively at the roof before taking a seat

 

[Marmite]

To be honest I'd love to know more about them. Any good sources of info that you'd recommend would be cool

 

[xylaria]

confronting phobias works.

When I was seven I jumped out of bed because I felt something in there. I pulled back the covers and there was a stag beatle in there. Crickey did i scream. OK I get to adulthood with some quite intricate avoidence behaviours, until one day my son who was a 3 at time had a right good laugh at me been scared of such little things. So time to get over it. Started with little coloured ladybirds and shield beatles progressed to letting blackish pincer bugs like devils couch horse and earwigs crawl on my hand. I got myself to the point i could touch a black ground beatle. I havent seen a stag beatle since leaving london but I could deal with it. I found a ground beatle in my hair after camping last year, i wasnt even phased by it, it looked almost pretty [irradescent with blue trim]. Life is much better without daft phobias.

 

[sandbender]

I have never had a problem with spiders, as a child I'd sit on the floor of my fathers greenhouse and watch the small black and white jumping spiders moving around on the woodwork above me, to my young mind they were like small walking tanks.

A phobia of creepy-crawlies or other animal may be something that is hardwired, I read a while back that when young chimps who had never before seen a snake were shown video footage of one they hugged each other in terror.

From my own experience of traveling overland in Africa I can remember shaking out my bedroll one morning to find a small white scorpion beneath, I squatted down to have a closer look and called two fellow travellers over, one a South African came down for a look too, the other who was local to the area took one look and ran a hundred feet. When asked afterwards he said that he knew of know one who'd been injured or killed by one but that he was simply terrified of the things.

 

[Perrari]

Never had a problem with spiders or any other creepy crawlies myself, in fact I quite like them.
I remember I used to work in an engineering workshop about 20 years ago with someone who I knew didn't like spiders, so as a joke one day when I came across quite a large one I took it to show him ! Big mistake !!! He totally freaked out and instantly went as white as a sheet before running away ! I was probably more terrified by his reaction than he was of the spider in the end. Since that day I have never teased anyone with a phobia for anything with anything.

 

[Harvestman]

The weird thing is that irrational fear of spiders (as opposed to a healthy respect for them) seems for prevalent in countries like the UK, where there are no dangerous species, than it is in countries like Australia, where there are spiders that you really should worry about. The theory is that where there are dangerous beasties you need to learn the facts and be able to deal with them, whereas I the UK you can be irrational and it makes no difference.

Which may be hogwash. Who knows?

To Marmite's question, about learning more, Wikipedia would be a good place to start. For UK spiders there is the Collins Field Guide to the Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe, by Michael Roberts (available on Amazon, eBay and elsewhere) which is full of information, even if it is really an identification guide for those armed with a microscope.

I've always said that spiders need better Public Relations. They do a vast amount of good to humans in terms of controlling insect pests, and yet their reputation is based on myth, folklore, and about half a dozen dangerous species. To cite one example, researchers in California in the 1980's removed every spider that they could find from a commercial orchard, just to see what would happen to the insect populations. The insect populations went up at least 20 fold, and the entire orchard crop was lost. It has been suggested that modern agriculture is dependent on spiders, even to this day, to keep aphid numbers under control.

 

[sandbender]

"...I've always said that spiders need better Public Relations..."

They do, whats not to like...

 

[Harvestman]

They do, whats not to like...

I rest my case

 

[Marmite]

I couldn't agree more with better public relations. After several climbing and paddling trips to Scotland I now see them all, rightly or wrongly as our anti midge and mosquito defence team .

Keep eating guys, keep eating

 

[greensurfingbear]

I like spiders me and wonder how people get freaked out by them they are amazing. The way they move, their webs. like most of the natural world it blows my mind. i Share my work space in the garage with my friendly wolf spider I've named Shelob.


Orric

 

[chimpy leon]

I wouldn't say I have a fear of spiders, I think they are fascinating creatures and I even handle the mid sized house spiders without any fuss... but when one of these especially big, fast moving buggers come suddenly scuttling into your life when you least expect it, well, that just makes me behave like a petrified school girl.

 

[Harvestman]

Part of the problem with UK spiders is that unfortunately the biggest, fastest ugliest UK species is the one you are most likely to encounter in your home. And you tend to meet it in vulnerable situations, like in your bedroom or bathroom, or late at night. Not helpful.

I also wanted to add that although I have spelled out the familiarisation process in great detail and many slow steps in my original post, in my experience the process start to finish has never taken longer than 10 minutes, although I should add that I usually do that with children, who are perhaps less set in their ways and more receptive to changing their behaviour.

Anyway, I am now making this a challenge for those that don't like spiders. Try it. Wouldn't it be great if you weren't afraid of them? Give it a go.

 

[Uilleachan]

I worked for a while out in the eastern desert of Egypt. Out there they have this wee jumping spider, a little prod results in the most pleasing little jump. So there I was awaiting my lift one afternoon cowering from the heat of the sun in the most minimal of shade. Along comes a tiny jumping spider I give him a little prod, by way of entertainment, but it doesn't jump, instead it stings me on the finger. Why? Mistake in identity, it was a wee teeny scorpion! Oocha. Finger throbbing for the rest of the day, be sure of a proper ID!