case of the spider phobia/billie

Question 1

case of spider phobia/billie overview

Answer 1

• Billie, sixteen at the time, scheduled b/c drop in marks at school
• After time, grew close relationship w/ therapist – mature figure
• Continued to pay for therapy out of own money
• Fear of spiders
• At this time, resented father, loved mother
• Billie was in and out of relationships constantly – couldn’t tolerate being alone
• Repeating pattern: fall in love, suffocate the relationship, guy would create excuse to break it off, repeat
• Suggested one way of curing this is to get your own apartment – eventually did
• Led to three things: 1) seemed to at first strengthened her fear of being alone, how it slowly helped, 2) her relationship w/ her father grew closer (left small house warming gifts), and 3) her mother began to resent her for getting a new apartment/resented her from leaving
• Mother continued to keep Billie at her house rather than letting her go – either by conversation, argument, etc
• Mom refused to pay for therapy once it became important to Billie, resented her from moving out, but not having a bf. Therapist acknowledged that this may be b/c the mother wants her daughter to become a carbon copy of her – closer they become, harder it’ll be to separate
• Things began to change once Billie began to write poetry
• The phobia for spiders came from the avoidance of recognizing that her mother was evil
• Phobias are the result of displacement – they occur when a normal fear or revulsion toward something is displaced into something else. In this case, as a young child, Billie displaced her revulsion of her mother’s evil into the fear for spiders – claims now that her mother “is a spider” trapping her “in her web”

Question 2

symbiosis

Answer 2

not a mutual beneficial state of interdependency. Instead it refers to a mutually parasitic relationship which it would be beneficial for both parties to separate. Ex: Hartley and Sarah clearly had such relationship