Purchase Professor: Facing Your Fears May Not Be the Best Way to Conquer Them

For many people, the thought of spiders is pretty creepy. But for others, spiders provoke a paralyzing response of fear, anxiety and dread.

Paul Siegel, Ph.D., is a psychology professor at Purchase College whose research could help people who have such an overwhelming fear of arachnids. His research could also hold important clues for how mental health professionals can go about effectively treating any phobia.

"In any type of well-done scientific research, you have to keep things simple," Siegel explained. "I focus on arachnophobia not for any reason other than it's easy to manipulate in a laboratory. I'm using it as a window of how phobias and fear work in the brain."

Siegel said that he's conducted five experiments with about 300 arachnophobic participants who sat in front of a computer screen and "are bombarded by images of spiders." Some participants saw pictures of spiders consciously, but others were viewed for only a split second, among other random images.

Siegel found that the subjects who knew they saw the spider images were more likely to become anxious during the screening and also more likely to fear going near an actual tarantula. However, the subjects who didn't know they saw the spider images because they were on the screen for a shorter period of time, were more likely to be calmer during the viewing and able to move closer to a tarantula during the subsequent portion of the experiment.

These results back Siegel's theory that "the traditional approach of directly confronting a phobia doesn't work as well as having the person being unconsciously exposed to it."

His findings, which are set to be published in the medical journal Emotion, have been confirmed in independent experiments by his colleague Joel Weinberger.

"It's one thing to get the same results in the same lab," said Siegel. "But to get the same results in separate labs, it becomes more credible."

While Siegel is careful to note that the study doesn't suggest a direct cure for phobias, it could provide a route toward recovery for people "who are really resistant and avoidant, to reduce their fear enough to get them over the hump so they can engage in treatment."

"Most people with anxiety disorders avoid treatment," said Siegel. "They'd rather live with the impairments and stress because they know treatment means they'd have to confront their phobia."

The next step for confirming the study's usefulness in psychotherapy, Siegel explained, is to conduct clinical studies with participants who are actively seeking treatment for their phobias.