Professor Daryl O'connor discusses an innovative technique which aims to reduce people's fear of spiders

Featured on BBC Radio Four's "All in the Mind" Professor Daryl O'Connor from the School of Psychology discusses how a new technique can help alleviate peoples phobias of arachnids.

A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder. It is an extreme form of fear or anxiety triggered by a particular situation or object (such as spiders in this case), even when there is no danger. However, in some cases, even thinking about the source of a phobia can make a person feel anxious, this is known as anticipatory anxiety.

In this episode of "All in the Mind" Daryl discusses the latest methods of using heart rate monitoring in exposure therapy to measure interoception and how it has multiple implications for not only aversion therapy but various other psychological treatments.

Daryl is a registered health psychologist with strong research interests in psychobiology and currently leads the Health and Social Psychology Research Group in the School as well as heads up the Group's Laboratory for Stress and Health Research (STARlab). Learn more about Daryl and his research interests here. 

Click here to listen to the full episode.