Reply To: Spider phobia
Jesse JacobsHi Paul,
Thank you for your reply. Let me tell you my experience thus far.
I have done the PSTEC the first click track four times now. The first session was intense. As I have gone on some of the original memories of when I was young such as when I first became afraid of spiders from watching a TV show, that seems to get much less of a response.
Next in my second session, I was noticing that I was not getting as much of a reaction going through all my memories of seeing a tarantula from the first event, at the zoo, in a pet store etc. I just went through every memory I could think of. So I decided to increase the amplitude and visualized one crawling on me as I did the click track. That was scary! I was shaking. But I stayed with it.
I believe I was following these instructions:
– Separately CT the imagined scenario of seeing a spider, insects
or even a lot of spiders crawling into your room, having to hold them etc. Make it as vivid and scary as possible. You can add a tarantula into this mix. Try to hold onto the fear while running the CT and CT that down to 0 or 1.
One thing to note is I have a very excellent imagination, I do visual work for a living and a lot my job is using my imagination. So I have noticed that the idea of one crawling on me has been slipping into my mind throughout the day. I wonder if my imagination is shutting out the click track. And I wonder if this is escalating the fear more, or if this is part of the process and to proceed?
In the next two sessions, I decided not to visualize a new imagined spider in such close proximity. Again I noticed the reaction to the memories from all the times I could think of being afraid of a tarantula in real life were less intense, which is good!
Questions: Is there a risk of creating new imagined memories and new fears by working so hard during the click track to imagine a tarantula so close? And therefore new neural connections? Or is the idea just to keep running the click track and increasing and increasing the fear using imagination until the fear is just totally gone and the association is totally neutral?
Also I started to try click track 2 and realized everything was switched. I got totally confused and went to click track one. How often should I switch?
All that being said I think this is working! Take that spider phobia!
Thanks Paul, I think this could be amazing!
Jesse