The trapezius muscle is one of the largest muscles, extending down from the neck to the middle of the upper back and stretching across the shoulder blades. The main job of the trapezius muscle is to stabilize and move the shoulder blades (scapula).
The affect phobia therapist views these conflicts as âaffect phobias,â a phobia about feelings. Similar to external phobias, a patient with an affect phobia avoids the experience and expression of certain feelings like anger and grief in a similar way a person with a phobia about bridges would avoid bridges.
She is not alone. According to the American Psychiatric Association, phobias affect more than one in ten people in the US, and of those individuals, up to 40% of phobias are related to bugs (including spiders), mice, snake and bats. There are clearly a lot of arachnophobes.