Students Face Their Fears

As part of their studies, year 12 and 13 Psychology students look at Phobias, they have to learn and understand how phobias can be classified, defined, diagnosed and treated in preparation for their upcoming exams in the summer. To aid revision in this area, the Psychology department arranged an internal extra curricular activity for all Psychology students. For part of the session students were guided through the process of ‘Systematic Desensitisation’ which is a common psychological treatment for Phobias, it was then arranged for external company ZooLab to come in with a range of phobic stimulus to test the effectiveness of the Psychological treatments they had practiced earlier in the day. ZooLab are an ethical animal handling team with rangers across the country who aim to ‘amaze, educate and inspire’ students with their hands-on animal encounters. Our ZooLab ranger brought with him snakes, rats, giant cockroaches and a gecko. Unfortunately, (or in some cases fortunately!) Phantom the tarantula was too aggressive for handling but with the other animals students were able to get up close to animals they wouldn’t ordinarily get the chance to interact with whilst practicing tried and tested relaxation techniques for anyone experiencing a phobic response to these animals. 

Feedback from the students was all very positive and many of them faced animals they had previously been fearful of!