Anxiety disorder: What happens in the brain when we face fears?

At first glance, spiders and church towers have little in common. Some are tiny, delicate and fidgety, others are made of solid walls and many meters high. What both have in common: They can trigger fears, even phobias. Some people are terrified by the creepy crawlies, others by the dizzying heights. And then there are poor souls who can’t bear either. It was such people who recently helped psychologists make a startling discovery.

A group of researchers at the Ruhr University Bochum came up with an experiment for test subjects who feared both spiders and heights. First, they confronted the test subjects with spiders: They led them into a room in which a house spider was sitting in a glass. The test subjects approached the creature step by step. Looking at them. Opened the jar. Touched her – first with a pen, then with a glove. In the end they let the animal walk over their hand. Impressive evidence that it helps to face your fears. But something else was remarkable: After the spider therapy, the test subjects suddenly dared to climb a church tower – as if they had immediately lost their fear of heights thanks to the spider.