About The Crash In Amsterdam



I've always asked people to ignore crashes that involve flying they are unlikely to be doing, such as military, planes flown by amateurs, third world airlines and third world airports. This crash by a Turkish airline in Amsterdam fits that recommendation.



Since images in the mind cause stress reactions, it is not wise to focus on accident reports. If you were an accident investigator, of course you would want information. Even if you were an accident investigator, you would still ignore media information because it is never reliable.



Focusing on media reports can only damage your ability to fly and do so for nothing at all. There is no benefit whatsoever to being misled.



Why Does Anxious Fliers Focus On Accidents?



The answer is simple. But to understand, you will need some basic information. First, the ability to regulate emotions is bestowed on us by caregivers; that happens very early in life. Second, if our ability to deal with uncertainty is insufficient, how do we compensate? We use "security blankets" (like Linus does) to soothe our anxieties.

1. It is a search for control. Our main "security blanket" is control. Focus on accidents is an attempt to gain control through understanding what happened. This leads to conjecture. Conjecture causes images of disaster to register in your mind. Later, they will trigger stress hormones when you think of flying. Then you will say, "All I have to do is think of flying and I get anxious!" Of course. You have inadvertently placed dozens of terrible imagines in your memory and associated them with flying. So, of course, when you think of flying, these images trigger stress hormones and cause fear.


2. It is to establish a feeling of being right. Another "security blanket" is escape from uncertainty by having a way out, or not getting into the situation in the first place. Focus on an accident is often done as a way to justify that flying is too dangerous, and thus to rationalize that a tendency to avoid flying is actually very wise.
   
   

Don't Get Traumatized By The Media



Even the best reporters distort the story because they have a limited understanding of aviation. When a reporter quotes an accident investigator, the investigator's statement gets distorted because the reporter doesn't fully understand the context, or doesn't report the context.



How Self-Traumatization Works

 



Never Imagine What Another Person Feels



The most severe self-traumatization is based on imagination of what another person feels. None of the people I treated after 9/11 who were in the World Trade Center building - and knew what they felt - were as traumatized as those  watching on television who imagined what people in the World Trade Center building were feeling.



Don't imagine what it is like to be on a plane that crashes. Doing so causes you to traumatize yourself via imagination.



Why Do Anxious Fliers Imagine The Feelings Of Others



Those of us who have trouble regulating emotion developed this problem because of lack of good one-to-one connection with empathic attunement, the direct connection of which informs us what another person is feeling, and informs the other person what we are feeling.



People who had better early experience are better at accurately sensing the feelings of others. Most anxious people grossly overestimate their ability to sense the feelings of another. Usually, instead of sensing the full spectrum of emotion, they sort emotion into narrow categories: safe, or threatening (in some way).



Anxiety leads to imagining what a person is feeling instead of developing the ability to sense what a person is feeling. Anxiety gets in the way of even asking what a person is feeling! Thus, it is likely that you have a tendency to imagine feelings. Don't do it. It can lead to your being traumatized. Also, it really is bad for relationships.



It Is About Connection, Connection, Connection



We all want connection. But we are afraid of it because of how past connections went badly. Rehabilitating the ability to connect is worth doing. It can be done in therapy, if you have a good therapist. Therapy becomes a lab in which to connect; what is learned is to be taken out into the world, not just kept in the therapy room.



What Do You Do Now About Flying?

• If you have the SOAR materials

Use the Strengthening Exercise. First go to you moment of special, empathic connection. Then, use a cartoon character. Have the cartoon character experience what you imagine the experience to be and then quickly refocus on your moment of connection.

• If you don't have the SOAR materials