Phobias. What are they?

What Are Phobias?

Let’s explore this together through a new article published on the blog of my website Benessere a Grandangolo.

Behind phobias, derived from the Greek phobia (fear), there can be various hidden aspects. Think of the fear of spiders (arachnophobia), insects (entomophobia), or snakes (ophidiophobia).

Phobias can be seen as a kind of “camouflage suit” hiding unresolved inner issues: fears linked to experiences that were never fully faced. These fears undergo a process in which an inner discomfort is projected outward, manifesting as extreme and disproportionate fears, a phobia, toward an external object.

A phobia is nothing more than a concealment of the original problem, which becomes invisible both to the person experiencing it and to those observing it. The person feels real discomfort but does not have to confront the root cause.

Take, for example, the fear of spiders when it becomes phobic. One might think this fear is justified since spiders are small, sometimes hairy, jump, and can bite, causing disgust or discomfort for some.

However, the causes of a phobia are complex and often result from a combination of factors.

Spider phobia often arises from a mix of predisposition (evolutionary or genetic) and learning (personal and environmental experiences).

Even if we rationally know that very few spiders are dangerous, our emotional brain, driven by fear, can override logic.

This emotional condition can have several origins, which we explore below:

1. Evolutionary Origins: Some theories suggest that fear of spiders (and snakes) may come from an evolutionary mechanism: ancestors who reacted quickly to potentially dangerous creatures had higher chances of survival. Studies even show that children focus more quickly on spider images than other animals. In these cases, an ancient part of the brain—sometimes called the “reptilian brain”—connects us to primal fears. That said, this explanation is not universal: in many cultures, spiders are revered or even eaten, indicating that fear is not innate for everyone.

2. Personal Experiences (Trauma and Direct Learning): A frequent cause is a traumatic experience, such as a bite, the shock of finding a spider on oneself, or frightening movie scenes. Often, the memory of the experience may be vague or even repressed, but the emotional imprint remains,a “spider trauma” even without a conscious memory.

3. Social and Cultural Learning: Children learn from the reactions of parents or caregivers. If an adult shows panic or disgust toward spiders, the child may internalize the fear and replicate the same reactions they witnessed. This is learned behavior, not innate.

4. Genetic Factors and Hereditary Predisposition: There is no “spider gene,” but anxiety often has a hereditary component. If other family members have phobias, it’s more likely they will develop them too, through social imitation or biological predisposition.

   
   

Culture and media also play a role, often reinforcing the idea of spiders as frightening or disgusting creatures.

The concrete example I share below is what I most want to convey through this article.

My goal is to offer readers insight into what often eludes their understanding, both in meaning and origin. Uncertainty creates discomfort, but clarity can bring us closer to well-being.

In a personal growth and counseling context, a client told me she had a strong fear of spiders, so strong that she called it a phobia. I asked how she felt at the sight of them, and she replied:"They scare me because they hide and can get into every crack. I feel it’s hard to coexist with them."

When I asked: "If you were to associate the spider with a person, what traits would they have and what emotions would they trigger in you?" she answered:"It would be someone who hides and jumps out of nowhere. They pounce on you. They stay in a corner still all the time, and if you try to move them, they dart quickly, and you don’t know where they’ll go."

From these words emerged three major fears: the uncontrollable, the unpredictable, and the unexpected.

It wasn’t just spiders, but life experiences related to people close to her, parents or caregivers, who were perceived as unpredictable and difficult to manage.

These three fears gave the outside world the power to influence her inner world.

Once we clarified the situation, we identified the mother’s figure, through certain behaviors, as the symbol of the spider, and thus the origin of the phobia. For my client, openly recognizing the discomfort linked to her mother would have been too painful, so the subconscious shifted the emotional burden onto the spider, transforming fear and disgust toward the animal into a phobia.

The mother, generally passive and unfulfilled personally, had lived hiding from herself and partly from her daughter, trapped by self-imposed limits, beliefs, and constraints.

To the daughter, she was difficult to face, especially in sudden reactions, like a spider resting in a corner that moves abruptly and unpredictably if disturbed.

At the unconscious level, this translated as: "Mom usually stays passive, still in front of many situations. But when frustration grows, if I try to make her change her mind or explain something, she reacts aggressively. And I struggle to cope and defend myself from the consequences."

By bringing this dynamic to light and finding new inner resources to navigate the relationship with her mother, the fear of spiders gradually diminished until it disappeared completely.

This is wonderful to me. Every person is a fascinating, complex, and precious world.

This is why I transformed my passion for archaeology into my mission: archaeologist of the soul.

With love,

Laura Monza