A new iPhone app is being developed to help people combat their fear of spiders.

The Phobia Free app exposes arachnophobes to pictures of spiders every day to help desensitize peoples fears of the eight legged creepy crawly.

Users begin with an unrealistic cartoon of a spider character called “Itsy”, and overtime it slowly becomes more realistic.

Human behaviour specialist Amy Jacobson told 6PR’s Gareth Parker familiarisation is a good technique to cure fears.

“If you are seeing something a lot it becomes more familiar,” she said.

“Fear is a lot around the fact that it’ the unknown, or it’s something we can’t control.”

She said it’s also important people understand the underlying fear behind their phobias.

“A lot of the time it’s not actually the spider that we fear, or the snake or the height, it’s the fear of the worst case scenario happening, it’s fearing the outcome,” she said.

“I think that every fear can be overcome, if you understand where it came from and what that underlying fear is.”

One in six people suffer from arachnophobia worldwide.

Click play to hear the full interview.  

(Photo: iStock by Getty Images.)