I have helped people overcome fear of flying for many years with the personalized approach I developed in my practice. There are a few phases of flying that tend to cause the most anxiety for people. Turbulence is one of the phases that seems to be scary nearly across the board for people who struggle with flying phobia. Occasionally, I do see people who are okay with turbulence, but still struggle with 
other parts of flying. However, turbulence is something that holds such a feeling of dread and creates panic of certain catastrophe for many.
Different Types of Fear of Turbulence
There are a number of reasons that turbulence can be so unsettling for people, and it often varies from person to person. Sometimes anxiety can come up when not understanding or knowing what is going on. However, it’s worth noting that even when people understand it , it often isn’t enough to stop the anxiety. Usually turbulence fears can really stir up deeper feelings beyond just not understanding. As I’ve written about previously, fear of flying is more of a “back of the brain” issue based on emotional responses. You can know all of the statistics in your favor, and you may know that turbulence is not a problem for airplanes. But no matter how much you know in the “front of your brain”, the emotional part of you in your mind and body can’t seem to align with what you mentally may know.
Anticipation of Turbulence
There are actually different aspects of turbulence that creates worry for people. It isn’t just turbulence or no turbulence. For many people, the anticipation of turbulence has them on edge throughout cruise. You may be cruising gently for the majority of the flight, but you can’t relax and you may even be paralyzed, waiting for that moment where it’s all going to fall apart and the shoe is going to drop. For people in this area, you can’t enjoy the moments where things are going fine because there is always a crisis about to happen, at any unknown moment.
Once turbulence starts, there may actually be a moment of slight gratification — that you’ve been waiting for this to happen all along and you finally can stop wondering when it’s going to happen. However, that gratification is quickly replaced by the anxiety of the unknown of how bad it’s going to get.
Loss of Control
For other people, they may be fine in a calm and smooth flight, but the moment turbulence shows up they begin to feel fearful. As long as things are in control, they are calm and feel in control. But the moment bumps happen, they’ve now lost the feeling of control in the situation. You can’t will the turbulence to stop, and you can’t just leave the plane, either. This loss of control becomes experienced as an intense vulnerability for some — one that they can usually avoid in life since there are usually ways to control their way away from the vulnerability in most situations. People in this category struggle to be in the space of having to sit and wait for the situation to improve no matter how rough it gets.
People in this area tend to experience turbulence as more all-or-nothing. Either there is turbulence or there isn’t — in control or out of control. It’s like an on-off switch of flying anxiety, and once the turbulence goes away, it’s a sigh of relief because the feeling of control has returned.
Unpredictable Turbulence and the Unknown
Then there are other experiences of turbulence where it isn’t so all-or-nothing, or anticipatory. For example, some do okay with certain patterns of turbulence. There might be a noticeable pattern of airplane movement that they can pick up on. Such as, the 
plane dips a little every ten seconds or so, and then bumps to the side a few seconds later before bumping back up a bit. This pattern repeats in a way that can become predictable. When there is a sense of predictability, this is a form of knowing and control and this can be okay with some people even though it’s bumpy.
However, once the flying and turbulence pattern becomes unpredictable, this is when the anxiety comes back in. When the bumps become varied and you don’t know which way the plane is going to move, or how much drop or movement will happen each time, it starts to feel like the worst is going to happen at any moment. Anything unpredictable or unknown becomes terrifying. Maybe it will drop too far, or maybe it will get bigger and stronger until it can’t recover. For people in this area, the lack of predictability and being in the unknown is the most difficult part.
Difficulty With Trust
And then there is the element of trust for others. For people in this group, it’s less about the sensations or the control. The moment the turbulence starts they fear that the pilots don’t know what they’re doing, or that they’re not paying enough attention. Or, what happens if the turbulence gets so bad that the pilots become overwhelmed? While we can call this another form of lack of control as well, to some extent, for people in this area, the worry with turbulence is less about the turbulence itself and more about the lack of trust in people and the systems in place. It feels like no one or anything will be able to handle all of the pressure and stress. It’s a scary, vulnerable, and out of control feeling to know that you are relying on people who you’re maybe not sure can come through in the roughest moments.
In each aspect of turbulence discussed above, there are different reasons that people struggle in each of these areas. It’s also common that people may experience more than one or all of the above types of turbulence fear, rather than just being in one category.
Overcoming Fear of Turbulence
People can and do overcome fears of turbulence. The first step is getting to know you and the elements of turbulence that are most triggering for you. We also will understand more of your experience of anxiety, fear, and overall emotional patterns so we can see how these come into play in your life and what turbulence is reaching into for you that makes it so terrifying to sit with. We combine this with various exercises I’ve developed for overcoming fear of flying. For each person, this process is a bit difference since you bring your own emotions and history, which is why the approach is personalized.
It is possible to overcome fear of flying, and to sit with turbulence with a different feeling and mindset. Reach out if you’d like to take the first step.
