It鈥檚 after midnight. The shadowy prison is prepared. Specimen
jars line the kitchen bench like cells in a corridor, waiting quietly for the
inmates to arrive. The mood is sombre.
I wonder: 鈥淲ill the capture be successful?鈥� I am tentative, nervous and
armed. Clumsy hands guarded by gardening gloves carry tweezers almost half my
body length. Specimen jars are strapped to my waist like ammunition. I look like
any average local lunatic who roams the suburbs after dark. And my specimen, you
ask? Deadly? I doubt it. Large? To your average ant, yes. Frightening?
Absolutely!
They are quiet creatures with grace, charm and intelligence. Delicate limbs
and piercing eyes can be quite seductive to the unsuspecting grasshopper! Yes,
my captive is the never-to-be-underestimated spider. My colleagues think I鈥檓
mad. But for me, it鈥檚 all just in a day鈥檚 work for my PhD in psychology.
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My research concerns treatments for an ancient survival mechanism known as
fear, which today wreaks havoc in many people鈥檚 lives. Why the spider hunt? For
many people, spiders equal fear. If we can persuade spider phobics to
participate in research (and this is a difficult task, believe you me) their
fear provides a model upon which we can base treatment for all types of
anxiety.
Now, ask yourself, have you ever been really afraid? If you answer yes, you
will know that fear feels like a monster that attacks from the inside. Terror
hits with great speed and impact, throwing its clutches savagely around the
minds and bodies of its victims. Some people live with anxiety like this every
day.
As unfortunate as it may seem, a powerful way to disable anxiety is by
confronting the very thing that you fear. This technique is known as in vivo
exposure, and is widely and successfully used in the treatment of anxiety
disorders. But it鈥檚 not really understood how it works.
My research involves using the little eight-legged prisoners to 鈥渦nleash the
inner beast鈥� that is fear, and then look closely at what happens to anxiety
during varying types of exposure. What would Sigmund Freud think about such
activities? My unresolved sadistic conflicts perhaps? If he could see my lab
this would certainly be his diagnosis.
She (my subject) sits at a desk in the centre of a dimly lit room, barely 4
metres square. The rush of air through the vent on the ceiling is the only hint
that the outside world still exists. She knows she is about to be confronted
with her greatest fear. Her heart pounds furiously in her chest and she breathes
rapidly. Gadgets are bound to her limbs, trapping and tangling her in a web of
wires. In front of her an open glass tray awaits, a solitary light shining onto
its surface as if a beacon for danger. It is empty but it holds the memories of
fearsome creatures who have roamed its terrain and who will do so again. She is
very afraid.
I enter the room. The tension is so thick I almost drown as I wade through it
to the terrified figure sitting stunned at the desk. In vivo exposure is about
to begin. The spider is lowered carefully into the tray so as not to upset his
tenacious temperament. Without warning and before a single blink of my eye has
passed, the fear of the subject is unleashed violently. This continues unabated
for several minutes. The spider and I wait, in awe of what is about to happen.
We have seen all this before. Slowly the metamorphosis begins. Before my very
eyes I see the fear subsiding. The clock ticks. The inner beast is dying. Calm
begins to drape itself over the objects in the room.
Finally the experiment is over. The subject grins curiously, overcome by the
strange disappearance of a fear that had gripped her for so long. She asks me
how this happened and I reply: 鈥淵ou are helping us to find the answer.鈥�