Phobias in general are not fun to deal with. However, the therapy approaches that tend to work for certain phobias generally don’t tend to work as well for fear of flying.
Why does flying anxiety almost seem to operate by different rules than other phobias?
I have worked with many people over time on overcoming fear of flying, and often people have tried different therapies to overcome it, only to have little luck until coming here and approaching things in a more comprehensive manner. But why do traditional phobia therapies not work well for fear of flying? For starters, there’s the whole being high in the sky thing which, no matter how safe it might be, is nearly impossible for many people to wrap their heads around how it could possibly be safe.
Another complexity is that flying is something that people tend to do only once in a while, unless their job requires frequent travel. Because of this, there’s less opportunity to overcome the fear, and it remains dissociated in the brain as something not normal to daily life, regardless of how routine flying actually is. This lack of normalization in the brain increases the anxiety about flying. Driving is much less safe than flying, but the reason people tend to generally drive without fear is because it’s something they do every day, and therefore the brain has internalized it as normal and safe. This is the aim of normalizing flying, as one component of overcoming the fear.
There’s more than one element to what feeds fear of flying
Using my experience as a psychotherapist, I created an approach based on the principles that if a person is going to overcome a fear of flying, it has to be able to be normalized by the brain. This involves other components as well. For example, the person has to know how to internalize a sense of the flying environment from a passenger perspective (not only awareness of certain sounds and sensations, and a bit about how flying works from the passenger sense, but also learning how to sit in the unknown and vulnerable space, as a passenger). They also have to be able to sort through the deeper difficulties with the flying environment as a whole, which can be quite complex, as this is created often from one’s upbringing, and one’s general sense of safety or fear in the world.
One of the reasons virtual reality and desensitization or exposure exercises don’t tend to work well is because deeper fears tend to emotionally have a way of blocking normalization. This is why many people who fear flying can fly regularly and still feel like they get lucky every time they make it to their destination, rather than eventually trusting its safety more with each trip.
If the approach isn’t personalized or multi-faceted, it’s almost definitely missing something important
Of course, it’s not completely as simple as this. It is still necessary to learn how to regulate our emotions and our minds (and active imaginations that take over when feeling fearful). The problem is that many therapists don’t approach fear of flying in a multi-faceted way, or even understand the various paths that fuel this fear. This is the mistake many approaches make. Thinking that one thing will resolve it all — pilots often think teaching you about flying will make you feel better; traditional cognitive-behavioral therapists will think you just need exposure; and so on. Fear of flying tends to respond best to a comprehensive and personalized approach.
Beyond normalization, passenger education, and emotional regulation, arguably the glue that brings everything together is the underlying element. What’s happening in your own deeper emotional self that creates the foundation for fear of flying for you? Why is it possible to be confident in other areas of life, yet be so fearful of flying? A fear of flying often encompasses a range of other phobias within it. For example: fear of heights, fear of falling, claustrophobia, loss of control, fear of embarrassment, fear of illness, etc. This just adds to what is already a complex phobia. The underlying elements are different for each person, and uncovering this is also important in resolving this fear.
All of this is what makes fear of flying such a unique phobia to treat. It requires a multifaceted approach, otherwise it comes up short.
Moving forward from this fear is within your reach
This approach is created in a way that it’s flexible to be tailored to each person’s needs (for example, some people fear takeoff the most, and we may spend more time working on this area in depth, or maybe certain underlying elements surface and we work more here for a time. Etc.). All that’s needed to do this is a willingness and interest to do some exercises and a curiosity to learn and talk about yourself. If fear of flying has been getting between you and your freedom in life, contact me to discuss if working together would benefit you.
