Snake phobia or ophidiophobia is an abnormal fear of snakes which presents itself in extremes such as a person not even able to look at a cartoon picture of a snake.
Recently a lady came to visit the sanctuary to get over her 30yr fear of snakes, her work was taking her to Africa and she felt that she may well see a snake whilst there.
Many people, even though they fear snakes can actually come into the sanctuary because the snakes are all inside their enclosures, just like visiting the zoo.
This lady’s fear was well entrenched and she had not been able to even read a news article about snakes.
She came to visit with trepidation, I began her cure by showing her hatched snakes eggs, shed snake skins and portrait photos of some of the snakes that live in the sanctuary with their names printed on. Knowing that the snakes have names and personalities helps, as it humanizes them to people and makes the snakes seem cute.
After this first session which included an educational talk about snakes in general how their senses work, how they relate to us and how we need to connect with them, we entered the sanctuary; surprisingly people sometimes connect better with larger snakes (I’m often told afterward that they are afraid they may hurt or drop the little ones) but mainly I use the tiny Kenyan Sand Boas as they look harmless and are too small to injure anyone.
(Of course we have no venomous snakes living in the sanctuary so it goes with out saying that none of our snakes are deadly to humans).
Wendy took 5hrs to get over her fear, but as these photos prove she completed her task, she is handling one of the baby Kenyans, mummy Kenyan “Sandy”, Sunny Florida King Snake, and Boudica the Albino Burmese Python. A link to more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophidiophobia “fear of snakes”
