Genuinely phobic, or really not very keen on?

Nandalot (What an amazing name!) I think your DGS deserves some psychological help. It seems so sad to think he has his life ahead with this incapacitating fear. I would encourage his parents to ask for help. I would think very gentle and understanding systematic desensitisation would work for him and probably be better earlier while he is young. Poor little chap.

phoenix I think you have made a good point about having to cope when you were alone. I thought I couldn't deal with spiders until a massive one was in the washbasin in my rather remote student digs and I alone there. I realised then that part of my fear was the way my mother and older sister wailed and yelled at them and made dad get them out of the house. Now I like them and if one is stuck in the bath I leave a towel hanging into it so it can crawl up and out. After all, they didn't ask to be spiders any more than we asked to be people.

I don't like Crane flies either but strangely I haven't seen any yet this year.

Magrithea Phobias are more extreme than just disliking or fearing something

That's exactly what I meant! I think some people are inclined to say that they have a "phobia" about something, when it's perhaps more of an intense dislike or fear. (Unpleasant for them, nonetheless)

I am Claustrophobic, the mere thought of an MRI scan will bring me out in cold sweats even weeks before I've had to have one (been for 3). I find using lifts difficult, can't get in a crowded one (& I've been trapped in one). I know where this stems from, as a small child I was hiding under a settle (wooden bench with stretchers between the legs & a back), I couldn't get out & panicked. Small or tight spaces bring on panic attacks. This is a genuine phobia unlike simply disliking things, I don't like wasps, moths, daddylonglegs but can cope with them

phoenix your post yesterday @ 23.30. Yes that's my experience. I dislike rats and cockroaches for example and prefer to avoid them, but that's quite different from my true phobia of birds.

(This is a bit like when people with a runny nose and a slightly tickly throat say they have 'flu!)

(Or a migraine when they have a slight headache!)

I do not necessarily agree with those who say a childhood experience causes fears which can be overcome with effort as science tells us that phobias are vestigial fears inculcated when spiders, snakes and other hazards were life threatening to early man. The childhood experiences might well be only the first manifestation of a phobia’s effect.

I would support this idea because I definitely have arachnophobia. I have trained myself not to mind small spiders or those with very thin legs like harvest spiders. In fact they are very like crane flies but six legged creatures bother me not the least.

However, the sight of a large, thick legged spider makes me jump, run and feel sick and sweaty. Strangely, the green, spiked stalk of a large tomato produces exactly the same result as they look so like spiders. I can not touch them either and they make me feel ill and fearful.

I know this is all nonsense and irrational as no native British spider can cause much harm. Therefore it must be phobic.

I have no intention of having any therapy as the very thought make me feel queasy and my phobia produces no effects which inhibit my life. In fact, with all the false widows and other beasties which seem to be entering our shores it might be very rational to remain wary!

It is somewhat vexatious to hear others who have no phobias tell, those who do to get over it. My mother has a snake phobia and birds send my husband into a tailspin. These phobias are real otherwise people could get over them.