When one has a phobia, it truly affects the day to day life of that person. Most people who have a certain phobia will do almost anything to avoid activity where they would see/experience that which they fear. It is understandable why OP would want to seek help. The doctor should have informed OP what his techniques are for helping people through their phobia rather than just throw them into the deep end.

That is a completely valid technique, it is called "Exposure Therapy" and is common to use with phobias as well as OCD. 150 dollars an hour is ridiculous though....

Surely you learn psychological treatments for phobias before going to therapy for it. I guess you haven't heard of Flooding therapy.

Paying $150 to see something that you can easily just go under your house and see for free.. Poor OP

Exposure therapy is a valid technique to desensitize you but on, what I'm guessing was, your first day it's a little too much. I had cognitive therapy for a vomit phobia and to start off I had to watch videos of other people being sick so I would think they would show you pictures then videos and then introduce the real deal.

This technique is called flooding! It isn't usually used (because of obvious reasons).. But it's trying to disassociate your irrational fear of spiders in a (very) confronting manner. He probably should have talked you through it first though, OP. Good-luck!

Haha #22, day = made

Get the **** over it pussy. Just a spider

I've got two outside of my door, you can have em' for 20 bucks.

1st- this is NOT how you are supposed to do this therapy. It should have been explained to you and you should have given your consent . 2nd- you NEED to report this guy to his licensing board (if he has a license) for ethical violations of not getting consent, incompetence, and patient harm. If not done correctly this therapy can be traumatic. 3rd- $150 an hour is a completely reasonable rate for a competent licensed therapist with experience in treating phobias.