Chat Wednesday 9 PM - 11 PM Eastern Time
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- dial (712) 432-3900
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when asked, enter the conference ID 9352101 followed by the # sign
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An Interview On Fear Of Flying
For an interview on fear of flying with Dr. Elvira G. Aletta, Ph.D., see this link.
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The Problem
The problem everyone struggles with in dealing with fear of flying is "psychic equivalence" in which what we imagine may be about to happen really seems like it is happening.
While a schizophrenic is constantly unable to distinguish imagination from reality, a fearful flier only has that trouble when strong emotion pushes aside the person's ability to do "reflective function.
Reflective function is the ability to look at ones thought processes and critique them, and determine if the thoughts are a very accurate representation of reality, a poor representation of reality, or are just "off the wall" crazy.
When emotion comes in, the ability to tell the difference can disappear. So the first question is how robust is reflective function. The second part is emotion: when there is emotion, it tends to push reflective function aside. A little emotion, a little bit; more emotion, perhaps totally shutting down reflective function.
The strengthening exercise, if set up right and practiced, controls emotion automatically so emotion does not threaten reflective function.
Without reflective function, reality and imagination become fused, and the imagination that the plane is about to plunge is not recognized as imagination but as reality.
If your reflective function is not so robust, what can you do to strengthen it? You may find that mindfulness training will help. See this link.
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From The Message Board
"Ever since my son was born I have had some trouble flying. I've never really enjoyed it, but now I'm starting to believe I am going to panic on my next flight. . . . "
"I'm sitting there listening very carefully to any sound that signals impending danger. What I fear about flying is what a crash experience would be like. In order to cope with things in my life that make me anxious I like to know worst case scenario-that tends to ease my anxiety when I come to grips with what the most awful thing would be in a situation."
"What would it be like going down in the plane? I need to know if it's
as awful as I imagine it to be. I don't really fear death, I fear the
manner of death." (You can read the message in full at this link.)
as awful as I imagine it to be. I don't really fear death, I fear the
manner of death." (You can read the message in full at this link.)
In the SOAR program, we have an advanced approach to deal with anticipatory anxiety which involves - as this writer does - imagining the worst possible flight. But we balance it with imagining the best possible flight. Then, we come back to reality by recognition that your actual flight will be neither the worst possible not the best possible but somewhere in between.
Then, we move toward commitment, something we call the Abstract Point Of No Return. You can read about it at www.fearofflying.com/wordpress/?page_id=14
We only run the best possible flight and the worst possible flight ones. Why? If you imagine disaster once, you know you are imagining it. But, if you repeatedly imagine that happening, you memorize the imagination. Once imagination is memorized, since it is stored in the mind in the same manner as factual information is, when it later comes in to mind, it has the force and authority of fact. That, then, causes it to seem like - if you fly - you definitely will crash. So you are on a very unfortunate track if you continue to imagine disaster happening.
Second, there is no good reason to do so. I, as a pilot, can't imagine what an accident would be like in any way that seems to me to be useful. I don't have preconceived notions of what would signal that an accident is about to happen. But, I can understand why anyone exposed to a lot of movies would think otherwise. In a movie, there is always something that causes suspense. So, though it doesn't make any sense technically, movie directors show the plane shaking and the pilots holding on for dear life.
That is just the entertainment business. It has nothing to do with reality. Accidents are so rare in the first place, and in the second place, when there is one, measures are taken so that doesn't happen again. So, for an accident to happen, it generally is something that never happened before, so you can begin to see how fruitless it is to try to imagine something that has never happened before, or how you would know something that has never happened before is happening.
But the person posting on the message board is right on target in a different way. (when she says, "I don't really fear death, I fear the manner of death. I have an issue with imagining drowning, plane crashes and torture.")
It isn't BEING dead that is the problem, it is GETTING dead. And when you begin to think about how awful "getting" dead on a plane might be, what are you using for the basis of that? Perhaps, if Alan Schore (researcher in neuro-biological psychology) suggests, it might come from being put to bed as a young child and left in terror to cry it out.
According to his research, when kids put to bed to "cry it out" appear to have gone to sleep, they are not asleep, but in a state of disassociated terror. It is very interesting to me how, when people imagine "getting dead" on a plane, that they seem to know the experience so well. I believe it is based on childhood terrors, which we hope to never feel again.
When pregnant and approaching delivery, recent research shows the expectant mother's brain is flooded with hormones that cause an obsession with safety. Anything that remotely (it doesn't have to make sense) seems like a risk has to be avoided. That's good for protecting the new infant in a primitive way, but it doesn't really protect in a modern world where such genetic encoding dealt with dangers that persisted thousands of years ago. And, though the hormones subside after delivery, the patterns established during that time may stick. That, in part, is what you are dealing with.
In any case, I'm sure we can correct it. Take a look at www.fearofflying.com/relief/
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"It Really Helped"
Last Wednesday we got back from Las Vegas and I have to say that it was probably the first time that I really took time to enjoy the flight! I kept re-reading the steps you gave me and kept replaying our conversation in my head. It really helped. We had light turbulence going to Vegas but I just kept telling myself that this was normal!
My next challenge will be to fly over the ocean....I am not there yet, but I know that I will want to face that fear too!
Thanks so much for taking the time to help me.
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" . . . Much More Relaxed And Enjoyable . . . "
Thanks for all of your great help over the last four years. I now work remotely in Sacramento and travel by air at least once or twice a month to LA for meetings. I made twenty-two flights in the last year including attending President Obama's inauguration in Washington DC from Sacramento CA. All were done without any anticipatory anxiety and a much more relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.
The service you offer has changed my life significantly and I have a sense of freedom to travel and see things I never thought I would see.
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SOAR Will Work For You Too
SOAR was established in 1982 because no programs existed that could help people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No matter how difficult flying is for you, we can help.
- Call me at 877 332-7359 between 10 AM and 6 PM Eastern time or
- Set up a time online at http://soar.genbook.com
- No Charge. No Obligation. Just get the information you want.
Or Enroll Right Now And Get This Over With
You will feel better as soon as you make the decision.
You will feel better as soon as you make the decision.
- Accelerated courses give you the most help possible in the time you have available.
- A twenty-minute private session and unlimited group counseling sessions are included.
- What you pay is 100% transferable to the SOAR Video Course 11 DVDs.
Start viewing on your computer screen in two minutes.
- Get a compact version of the SOAR Course.
- Load it on your laptop, iPod or other media player. More info.
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Unsure Which To Choose
If you are unsure which is best for you, please call me at 877 332-7359 so we can talk it over. You will feel better as soon as you decide to act.
We are always here to help. As you go through the program, call or email whenever you have a question or a concern.
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Anxiety About What Can't Be Controlled
It's true. Something catastrophic could happen. But since it happens only once in about 5,000,000 flights, consider your life. Consider 5,000,000 minutes. That is about 83,333 hours, or 3,472 days or about nine-and-a-half years. If in that period of time you had one moment of terror, would that make it worthwhile to spend all that other time thinking about that one minute? Wouldn't that be a ruined life?
It seems to me that we have to bite the bullet and accept that something or someone may kill us. Otherwise, we lose our life by our own hand.
That's the logic, at least. How do we stop obsessing and start living? Discipline, in part. And the strengthening exercise in part, and the 5-4-3-2-1 in part.
As to a kind of philosophical look at it, we have a little thing in the SOAR Course called "The Thousand Moment Life". It is a story about a little animal that lives in a hole. Destiny has determined that this little animal is going to live one-thousand moments. But the little animal doesn't know. So, every day, it peeks out just a bit to see what is going on and thinks, "Is this 'IT' - is this the last moment of my life?"
And after answering that, and discovering it is still alive, it assumes it isn't the last moment of its life, and crawls back into its hole to safety. Then, in the next moment, it repeats that. And it continues to repeat that until moment number 998.
Then, when moment 999 arrives, and the little creature climbs up to look around, and asks, "Is this the last moment of my life?" And discovers it is. Then it says, "Ahhhhh. At LAST I can relax." And then, moment 1000 arrives and it dies.
The point of the story is that the focus on safety and what it might be like to die - yes, of course, in the service of being prepared and bracing yourself for it - only consumes every moment of a person's life, except one: the last one. Finally, when you realize you are about to die, you get to live.
But for only one moment - in your whole life.
It reminds me of how stock car racing got started. Guys who ran "moonshine" liquor gathered at a track in North Wilkesboro, N.C. to race each other on a dirt track. The organizer and owner of the track required a small entry fee.
Basically, the rules were, there are no rules. When a prospective driver asked about the rules, the expression was, "You pays your money and you takes your chances."
It isn't easy to recognize it. It is harder to accept. There are no guarantees. The rules are not always followed. And, there is no absolute safety. But once we get that established, we don't have to wait until moment 999 to start living.
And after answering that, and discovering it is still alive, it assumes it isn't the last moment of its life, and crawls back into its hole to safety. Then, in the next moment, it repeats that. And it continues to repeat that until moment number 998.
Then, when moment 999 arrives, and the little creature climbs up to look around, and asks, "Is this the last moment of my life?" And discovers it is. Then it says, "Ahhhhh. At LAST I can relax." And then, moment 1000 arrives and it dies.
The point of the story is that the focus on safety and what it might be like to die - yes, of course, in the service of being prepared and bracing yourself for it - only consumes every moment of a person's life, except one: the last one. Finally, when you realize you are about to die, you get to live.
But for only one moment - in your whole life.
It reminds me of how stock car racing got started. Guys who ran "moonshine" liquor gathered at a track in North Wilkesboro, N.C. to race each other on a dirt track. The organizer and owner of the track required a small entry fee.
Basically, the rules were, there are no rules. When a prospective driver asked about the rules, the expression was, "You pays your money and you takes your chances."
It isn't easy to recognize it. It is harder to accept. There are no guarantees. The rules are not always followed. And, there is no absolute safety. But once we get that established, we don't have to wait until moment 999 to start living.
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AirTran Pilots To Join ALPA
ValuJet - originally the darling of Wall Street because of cost-cutting - was an accident waiting to happen. We didn't have to wait long. The airline cut training costs so severely that personnel were unable to recognize that oxygen canisters taken off one of their planes by an outsourced maintenance company were unacceptably dangerous, loaded them on a plane, and caused the plane to crash. They changed their name to AirTran, got an infusion of capital and got their act together. Now, in a move which will strengthen safety at the airline, their pilots overwhelmingly voted to give up their weak independent union and join ALPA. See story at this link,
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Discuss Or Schedule An Individual Session -- Call 877 332-7359
Call between 11 AM and 6 PM Eastern Time (same time zone as New York)
You'll reach me easily. The toll-free number rings my cell phone.
Call between 11 AM and 6 PM Eastern Time (same time zone as New York)
You'll reach me easily. The toll-free number rings my cell phone.
- find out how I can help you with flying
- discuss the possibility of a counseling session
- set up a time that fits your schedule
Outside the U.S. and Canada call 203 258-4803
- a twenty-minute session is $60.00 if not enrolled in a course.
- one twenty-minute session is free if enrolled in any course.
- additional twenty-minute sessions are $60.00.
- two one-hour sessions are included in the SOAR Guaranteed Program
Schedule An Individual Session Online
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