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Last night, before going to sleep, it was on my mind that I had a session today with a client whose anxieties persist. It seemed to me as I thought about her situation that she has trouble with distinguishing what is "inside" from what is "outside". By that I mean, when she imagines her plane may crash, though I remind her that it is her imagination, she remains troubled by the thought. So, I was wondering what I could do with her in the session.

 

I began to have a fantasy. I thought I could say to her, "Don't think of an elephant in the room." And then point out that she just did. I would say, "That's the way the mind works. You can't keep thoughts out. But notice that the elephant in your mind is not real. Likewise, the flight in your mind that is crashing is not real."

 

"But," she could answer, "planes do crash."

 

"Yes," I would say, "and again it is like that elephant. There could indeed be an elephant in your room, but either the elephant would have to charge in and break down the wall to get into your room, or someone would have to cut away the wall and lead the elephant in. In other words, for there to be an elephant in your room or for a plane to crash, it has to be caused. And there are only two ways the plane could crash: 1. the plane is flown too slow, and 2. the plane is caused to bash into something. As to flying too slow, if you ride a bike, you can tell if you are riding too slow to stay upright, and if you eat an ice cream cone, you can tell if you are eating too slow to keep it from melting on your hand. Likewise, the pilots can tell if they are flying too slow. Besides, there are warnings that go off if they did. So the only thing left is to bash the plane into something. That something would have to be the ground or another airplane. The GPWS warns the pilot if he or she is at risk of bashing the plane into the earth. The TCAS warns the pilot if he or she is at risk of bashing the plane into another plane."

 

"That leaves," I planned to say, "only one possibility and that is that the pilot bashes the plane into the ground intentionally. What if I asked you to go get a hammer and bash your hand with it. Would you do it?" I assumed she would say, "No," which would allow me to say, "Well, the pilot wouldn't either. So there is a difference between what you imagine inside and what happens outside."

Though a two year-old cannot reflect on his thinking well enough to recognize imagination from reality, a three year-old can. Insulting as it may be, the problem with fear of flying is that when there is stress, we lose the ability we had at age three to distinguish imagination from reality.

 

As I actually did the session with her, I realized that she might be escaping from reality by living in imagination. Certainly that is a strategy people use when flying. It began to seem to me that this client was living in imagination routinely. I can see why one would do that, for after all, reality is frightening. So why not live in imagination? The reason is, we make a mess out of our lives if we live in imagination as a way to protect ourselves against fears just as surely as an alcoholic makes a mess out of his or her life by escaping from reality.

 

We feel safe when we are in control. And when there isn't sufficient control, we want a way out. On the plane there is neither, so we may turn to gaining escape psychologically by keeping the mind off the flight. Imagination might seem like a good idea, but imagination may not restrict itself to benign fantasy; something feared might come to mind. It certainly does when turbulence intrudes into ones ability to keep the flight out of mind. Suddenly imagination of plunging is in the mind, and we have to bring our three year old abilities to bear or suffer terror that what is in the mind is really happening.

 

So, I suggested to the client that, as a discipline, she needed to bite the bullet and get out of her imagination and into reality. For a few moments, it seemed like she didn't know what I was talking out. It was a Robin Williams moment, like the moment he said on the Mork and Mindy television show, "Reality, what a concept!"

 

But before too many moments passed, reality stuck. She found it. Will she stay with it? Who knows. Do you stay with it? Do I stay with it? What would it be like to live in reality? Wow. What a concept!

 

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House Passes Pilot Experience Bill

 

See story at this link.

 

The House of Representatives has passed legislation to increase the flying experience needed to fly as an airline pilot. This measure is a response to the crash earlier this year in Buffalo.

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