LEARNING TO DEAL WITH REASONABLE RISK

Others who work with flight anxiety base their work on telling people how
safe it is. Then, when there are accidents, the clients are set back, maybe
permanently.

For many belief in absolute safety doesn't work at all. Actually, it should
not work. you and I both know that planes SOMETIME crash. Problem
is, how are they to know it isn't going to be our plane. We don't. So what
do we do about that? What we try to do is take that little bit of what Tom
Wolfe called in his book on astronauts and test pilots "The Right Stuff"
(the ability to deal with risk, and manage emotions, even if the Space
Shuttle or experimental airplane appears to be about to kill you - not in
imagination - but for real) and grow it enough for you to be able to deal
with the very small risk that the plane you are on is going to be the one
that crashes.

When I put together the DVD course, I made sure it would help anyone
and everyone be able to fly. Soon we found that most people did fine with
just "The Control of Anxiety." So, I stopped recommending that people
buy the whole course. I didn't want people to spend money unnecessarily.

But people who have not mastered "The Psychology of Flight Anxiety"
do miss out on something that can bring great personal growth: the APNR,
or "Abstract Point of No Return".

When I flew the F-100 in the Air Force, my training group was the first
group to go through training and no one got killed. There were thirteen of
us; 18 months later, there were nine of us left. Every time I walked out the
one of the thirty or so F-100s sitting on the ramp, I knew some of them
were bombs with the fuse already lit, and I had no way to know if the one
I was assigned for that day was one of those.

So you decide. Either you are going to do it, or you are not. And when
you make the commitment to do it, you make the commitment knowing it
could kill you, and you are going to do it anyway. When that commitment
is made irrevocably, anxiety drops away. We call this the APNR, the
"Abstract Point of No Return". When the door closes, you are past the
point of no return, but not necessarily as the "author" of the experience.
You may be there as a "victim". There is a total difference between being
past the point of no return as a victim versus as the author (the person
who intentionally causes this to be).

The APRN is not for everyone. Not everyone has enough "self" to do that.
But we teach it in "The Psychology of Flight Anxiety".

For me, the real challenge is experiencing it as it is. There is a chance
the plane will kill you. It is a small chance. Even if you stay home, you
are no safer, and may well be less safe because every time you drive
5.4 miles, you have run the same risk as taking an airline flight.

So, for me to choose one or the other is to choose to bullshit people.
I want the people I work with to have - at least a chance - of gaining a
bit of maturity, and a bit of "The Right Stuff."

==========

WANT A BIT MORE OF "THE RIGHT STUFF"?

All the help you need to fly comfortably and confidently is here:

http://www.fearofflying.com/store.shtml

==========

THIS WEEK'S HOPEFULLY INSPIRATIONAL EMAIL

Dear Tom,

I'm writing after a marvelous trip to New York, my first time ever out of
Europe. I couldn't have done it without the SOAR program.

Having flown happily in my teens and 20s I lost my nerve after exper-
iencing "big" turbulence in a thunderstorm and since then either avoided
flying or flew terrified and full of brandy. I found your website via Google
last year, saved up for the full DVD program, bought it this summer
and nerved myself to take a 2 hour flight to Italy. I was amazed at the
difference in my attitude and feelings. Although I was a little tense at
times - maybe at level 3 on a scale of 10 - the exercises and my greater
understanding of the theory of flight carried me through. I wasn't sure
how I'd cope with the 7 hour flight from London to New York but I was
fine - all thanks to you and SOAR.

We're now planning our next long-haul flight, confident in the knowledge
that revising the SOAR DVDs will continue to build confidence and
enjoyment. Thank you for opening new doors of opportunity for me and
my partner - a confident flier who's patiently done without exotic holidays
out of consideration for me. World here we come!

Gratefully yours

==========

WHAT ABOUT OPINIONATED NON-FLIERS?

Why do some fly just once and stop? Of the people I have know who
did that, they are VERY controlling people; they even control reality.
Some people just have to be right - in their own mind - at all costs.
For example, I met an attorney at a social event who told me he was
on a plane that fell 10,000 feet. I told him it didn't happen. He said it
happened; he knew it happened; said it was in the newspaper that it
happened. I kept telling him it did not happen. Finally, I was so dis-
gusted that he - who knows nothing about flying - was so controlling
that he kept trying to shove his version of reality down my throat, that
I left the party to get away from him.

There are people, and you probably know some, who are very con-
trolling about reality. Some make a living at it, such as radio talk show
people; they truly seem to think they are brilliant and correct, and
because of that, they are convincing to many people, people who
get their info FROM these talk show hosts rather than from various
less biased sources.

You may find what very opinionated people say attractive. Thinking
in absolute terms (good versus evil, safe versus dangerous) is not for
mature adults, but that doesn't stop immature adults from claiming
what they claim.

If you have heard stories from other people - stories that they swear
are true - and they frighten you too much to deal with the question of
getting over your own difficulties with flying, please email or call me.
Maybe we'll put some of the more preposterous examples in the
newsletter.

==========

PSYCHOPATHS

When I was studying psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Masterson
Institute, Dr. Masterson directly supervised one of my cases. When in
such training, students maintain a word-for-word record of the session
to present to the supervisor. After reviewing one of my sessions with a
client, Dr. Masterson said, "Tom, I think you need to be very careful; I
think you are dealing with a psychopath."

As it turned out, Dr. Masterson was right; a few sessions later, the client
did not show up. He was in jail for armed robbery. I didn't know how to
spot a psychopath, but Dr. Masterson did. Through training with him,
I've learned to spot them also.

Most therapists do learn. We learn because it is useless to try to treat
a psychopath; there is no treatment for psychopaths. They lack a vital
human emotion: empathy. They are unable to experience remorse
for what happens to their victims. They just do not connect with people.
Not only is an attempt to treat a waste of time, it is dangerous.

After a therapist learns to recognize them, they becomes so obvious that
you begin to wonder why it a person you recognize as a psychopath is
not recognized by others.

It think it is because good people - people who are truly human and have
empathy for other people - simply cannot understand that another person
who LOOKS so much like everyone else is profoundly absent of certain
essential human qualities.

Part of the problem is that psychopaths incredibly charming. Psychopaths
learn to be charming so they can succeed at being manipulative, deceitful,
ruthless and destructive. When therapists meet a person who is incredibly
charming and charismatic, it raises a "red flag". We have learned think:
a. psychopath, or b. narcissist. We will get into the difference later.

Though it is obvious to myself and other therapists that some of our most
respected leaders are psychopaths, I have stopped trying to point them
because people who believe in them become outraged. I've decided it is
better to teach you what to look for. It is - I think - important for everyone
- not just therapists - to learn to recognize psychopaths. Why? Because
some betray others for money or sex. Some take more.

Is this about fear of flying? Yes, because good people may find it hard to
believe those who run an airline may not care if planes are improperly
maintained, or that the pilots are fatigued. Good people find it hard to
believe that anyone could be so motivated by greed that they do not care
what happens to others. Well, it is not just that they are that motived by
greed; they do not have the capability to care what happens to others
as a result of their actions.

The business magazine, Fast Company, recently ran an article about
psychopaths and how they fit in today's ruthless corporate world.

The article is entitled: Is Your Boss a Psychopath? You can find it at:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html

What follows combines the main points in the article with what I have
learned about psychopaths.

Psychopaths do not experience empathy. They use other people
callously and remorselessly for their own ends. Charm masks their true
nature as pathological liars, con artists, and heartless manipulators

Robert Hare, from the University of British Columbia, is renowned in
the field of criminal psychology. His Psychopathy Checklist is used to
identify psychopaths, the one-percent of the population that isn't
burdened by conscience.

According to Hare, psychopaths are not just hit men, sex offenders, and
serial killers. The business climate has become hospitable to psycho-
paths in recent years. He says they cause thousands to lose their jobs,
or their life's savings with no sense of guilt or remorse.

How can we recognize psychopathic types? In addition to charm, look
for glibness, a grandiose sense of self-worth such that rules are for other
people. Look for lying, conning, manipulativeness, and lack of remorse
or guilt. Psychopath are emotionally cold, but successful ones learn to
cover it with emotional displays that are actually playacting). They are
callousness and lack empathy. They do not accept responsibility for
what happens to others due to their actions.

Though a psychopath CEO can be as ruthless, selfish and remorseless
as a serial killer, the corporate version controls impulsiveness and
physical aggression. Psychopaths who end up in jail - for other than
accounting - are more impulsive, more violent and may have a socially
deviant lifestyle.

Psychopaths succeed because few of us grasp that they are funda-
mentally different from us, and have no feelings for any harm that their
actions cause us. Our failure to identify them and to understand they
lack empathy - though they may feign it - makes it easy for them to manip-
ulate us, make us believe they love us, or make us believe they are a
loyal friend.

When we realize we were being conned all along, we feel betrayed and
foolish. "People see sociopathy . . . and they don't have a clue that it has
a label or that others have encountered it," says Harvard psychologist
Martha Stout. "It makes them feel crazy or alone. It goes against our
intuition that a small percentage of people can be so different from the
rest of us-- and so evil. Good people don't want to believe it."

In the comics, criminal types are often drawn so as to show a grotesque
quality. That is misleading; psychopaths look just like everyone else.

What about the other red flag when someone is unbelievably charming,
the narcissist? Narcissists use charm to get and hold the spotlight. Like
psychopaths, smart narcissists can succeed. Narcissists don't really see
other people as people but as things which may be useful.

Narcissists need others to "be on the same page"; that is, to see things as
they see them. In business, some are visionaries who use other people as
a means toward making the world - or the corporation - the way they think
it should be. Like psychopaths, narcissists have little or no capability for
empathy, but may be quite talented at causing others believe they care.
But when you disappoint a narcissist by failing to be useful or failing to be
on the same page, it is like the television show "You're Fired". Or they just
turn off the charm switch, and you feel the coldness of being frozen out.

If you are interested in learning more, consider Martha Stout's book, The
Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us. Or Hare's
book, "Without Conscience."

The bottom line: when you choose an airline, do not just blindly trust that
the management of that airline cares. YOU need to learn for yourself how
to airline

The test for determining if someone is a psychopath is at this url:

http://pf.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss-quiz.html

==========

SOME GREAT TIPS

A SOAR participant sent this hoping it would help.

1. The lights don't dim by magic or mechanical failure, the crew does it!
2. There aren't magical buttons and gadgets to keep the plane in the
air behind all those doors in the front of the cabin, they're trash bags
and the crews personal belongings.
3. When you see men loading "things" at both the front and rear of the
cabin, it's beverages and snacks, and toilet paper; not special devices
for flight!
4. The crew sits down and talk to each other, they're really human!
5. The cockpit isn't big at all!
6. The pilots known those instruments as well as I know my car instruments.
7. We're not launched into outer-space, but can see the ground on a
clear day.** more on this later.
8. Pilots and crew don't care about turbulence and don't grip their seats
or make faces at bumps and jiggles.
9. Being on planes that stops at one destination before going on to the
next (without changing planes) is a great way to see what REALLY
goes on when they're parked at the gates. (They clean, chat and get
ready for the other people to board.)
10 Turning your head to look out the window does not put the plane,
crew or passengers in danger, nor does it upset the balance of the
aircraft
11 Going to the bathroom does not imbalance the plane; and your bladder
will thank you!
12 The conversation between flight crew and ground crew has nothing to
do with danger, fear of death; it's about them (again, they're human)
13 The bing-bing you sometimes hear during flight is the rear crew talking
on the phone to the front crew and it's NOT about the plane about to
crash, but has to do with juice, snacks and trash pickup.
14 The pilot and 1st office go to the bathroom - although not at the same
time, while the plane is in flight!! (this was a shock)

Because I was determined to pay attention to what was going on in reality
instead of what I wanted to believe was going, it was the most enlightening
experience I've ever had. I decided to look out the window and was totally
shocked to see the ground, not just on take off and landing, but most of the
flight. It was a total shock that I could see the ground, except for when
there was cloud coverage! I've got to admit my perspective of 35,000 feet
was WAAAAYY off. My son, husband and I had many many good laughs
at my artist rendition of how far I thought the plane was from the earth and
where it really is. My husband asked did I wonder if we'd see any satellites;
and son asked, through hysterical laughter, if wasn't I concerned about
burning up upon re-entry into the atmosphere.

The KEY here is that although intellectually I knew we were 30,000-35,000
feet above the earth, my PERSPECTIVE due to my fear made me think that
we were hundreds or thousands of miles above the earth. They had tons of
jokes about this. On those rare occasion I'd glanced out of the window,
saw clouds or fog, - in my fantasy, fear mode; I'd placed the plane half way
between the moon and earth!! :)

THANKS !!!

==========

DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE HOW FLYING FEELS?

To get started, please just go to:

http://www.fearofflying.com/store.shtml

==========

IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, CALL ME

I'm available from 10 AM until 7 PM Eastern Time (same as New York) at
877 332-7359. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call (203) 258-4803

Or email me at: tom@fearofflying.com

==========

FEAR OF FLYING BLOG

All the newsletter from the past year or so are at:

www.fearofflyingblog.com

plus some photos of last years New York SOAR-FEST and blogs
by Bonnie, Cap'n Steve (AA captain) and others.