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Fear of Flying?
By: Captain Tom Bunn, LCSW
Vulnerability to anxiety can stem from insufficient "self-soothing." When there is insufficient self-soothing, anxiety develops. When anxiety develops, our natural strategy is to get control of the situation we are in, and to change what is causing the anxiety.
Once anxiety develops, there will be a need to control. If we can't get enough control, it is natural to want to get out of the situation. The strategy that works on the ground will not work when anxiety develops when on a plane. We can't control the plane and we can't escape. Rendered incapable of reducing the anxiety, we feel out of control. With no control over the situation, we have no control of our feelings. We become alarmed that our feelings may become too difficult to endure. What then is one to do? Avoid flying, or tough it out?
Let's look at how self-soothing is supposed to develop. During the first year of life, an infant needs to develop what Eric Erickson called "Basic Sense of Security." Basic Sense of Security develops only if the infant's caretakers respond to the infant's needs by being tuned in to the infant's emotions. An infant can be lavishly attended to and still not develop Basic Sense of Security if the care provided is not in response to the infant's signals. The Basic Sense of Security is the essential foundation for the next stage of development.
The next stage begins around age one when a child starts to explore the environment. The child must be stopped when doing something dangerous or problematic without sacrificing entunement. For development to continue, the caretaker must: 1. stop the child while, 2. tuning into the energy expressed in this activity; 3. redirect the child to acceptable activity in harmony with this energy; and 4., after redirecting the child, continue to be present and to interact with the child with emotional entunement.
When mishaps occur, the child rushes to the caretaker for soothing. If the caretaker is consistently available to: 1. respond to the child, 2. soothe the child, and then 3. give encouragement to try again, this sequence gets built into the child's memory.
After a few months, if this sequence (entuned response, soothing, and encouragement) is consistently available when the child seeks it, the child can count on it being there when s/he wants it. Then, whenever beginning to be anxious, the child begins fantasizing what will happen (entuned response, soothing, and encouragement) if s/he goes to mom.
The fantasy--in the child's mind--of the caretaker's response, soothing, and encouragement, begins to replace the need to go to the caretaker to get actual response, soothing, and encouragement.
In time, the fantasy of mom's soothing flows automatically through the unconscious whenever anxiety starts to arise. The fantasy automatically and unconsciously neutralizes anxiety. Thus, significant amounts of anxiety never reach consciousness.
Minor worries never even come to mind, and major ones are easier to handle due to an expectation that things will work out all right, as the child "hears" mother's voice saying, "Don't worry, Honey, it's going to be all right."
If self-soothing is in short supply, one can be flooded with things to worry about, and--instead of expecting things to work out all right--one routinely expects the worst.
Some caregivers supply loads of soothing but do so inconsistently. Inconsistent soothing cannot be "taken for granted." Only soothing that can be "taken for granted" can become internalized into self-soothing. Soothing that is internalized becomes self-soothing and is transportable. Wherever one goes, he or she feels secure.
When the caregiver's soothing fails to become self-soothing, the child must remain in the presence of the caregiver to manage anxiety. When soothing must come from an actual caregiver instead of an internalized caregiver, it is as though the two are connected by a psychological umbilical cord through which the soothing flows.
If soothing is not made transportable by internalization into self-soothing, problems arise in later life when going out into the world on ones own. The adult may be unable to leave home, or may need to live nearby. Or, the adult may find that home, because it is associated with being taken care of, can represent soothing, and ones "home base" becomes the other end of the psychological umbilical cord.
When distance from the caregiver or from "home base" stretches the psychological umbilical, anxiety may develop that the cord will break, resulting in panic. This may be managed by maintaining an option to turn around and head home. But bridges, tunnels or limited highway exits can block immediate exercise of this option and in themselves cause anxiety about ones ability to maintain situational control.
Flying presents a dual problem. It stretches the distance from home both horizontally and vertically. The higher we are above the ground, the longer it will take to return to our most basic means of controlling feelings: locomotion - our own two feet on the ground. And the higher up, the farther we are from control. Though cruise is the safest phase of flight, anxiety increases in cruise and most relieved when about to land. Why? During landing, the feeling is "It's almost over," for control is about to be restored.
Vulnerability to anxiety - and thus to fear of flying - develops if adequate self-soothing is not built in. It is also possible for self-soothing to have been fully developed but be subsequently damaged by trauma. Freud said the problem with trauma is it comes unexpectedly, "out of the blue." So what do we do? We expect it all the time. If trauma came when we were relaxed, so we stay tense since relaxation may provoke disaster. Plus, we try to control everything in our environment to prevent trauma. Every trauma experienced in life puts a load on ones self-soothing and leaves less self-soothing available to ward off anxiety.
The Onset of Fear of Flying
Flying frequently becomes a problem approaching marriage due to increased anxiety: leaving home, going out on ones own, anxiety about marriage. Marriage, like flight, means taking off into a new and unknown experience. It means giving another person major control over what happens and over our feelings. And, like the airplane, it can't be gotten out of instantly.
Just at the time when we need all our courage to face marriage, love makes us feel, as the song says, like a babe in arms. The vulnerability that comes from being in love can make flying difficult.
Fear of flying often begins when becoming a parent for the first time and become responsible for a life other than your own. It may help to know that you and your child are safer on an airliner than sleeping at home at night. Though it may not feel that safe, you are actually much more protected in flight than on the ground. So, in terms of safety, you are doing your child and yourself a favor to fly rather than stay on the ground. In other cases, fear of flying is precipitated by increased stress or the death of a loved on.
Trust Issues
We all have had situations where we trusted and were let down. It matters WHEN trust was betrayed. If it happened in childhood, it may cause normal development to be arrested. Untreated, arrested development profoundly changes ones life. When development is arrested prior to four years of age, there is little conscious memory to facilitate therapy. Therapy then depends not on memory but upon interpretation of the way we relate others to reveal what happened that cannot be remembered.
Fortunately, relief from fear of flying does not have to depend upon lengthy therapy. Specialized therapy can strengthen your ability to fly, usually in less than two hours. The strength you have in an area of confidence is attached to flying (or other fears). This is a very specialized therapy, and very effective for flying.
Anticipatory Anxiety
"Just put it out of your mind." It isn't that easy, but the following technique may help. First, ask yourself what scenes are part of this anxiety. Go ahead and capture one of these scenes, such as (possibly) the airplane plunging down to crash. Then, use your imagination to create a small TV set. Imagine the set is across the room. Plant yourself in your chair. Really FEEL you body planted HERE, and see the TV set over there. Make sure this is only a small screen (5") black and white set - no color! Then put the scene that is bothering you on the small, black and white TV set; and all the time you are viewing the scene, be absolutely sure to keep the scene enclosed by the framework of the TV cabinet. If there is sound, remember these little sets have poor quality artificial sounding sound. If you want to, you can imagine the scene on the TV set is coming from a VCR and you have the remote control in your hand and can run the scene wards and forwards, freeze-frame, or turn it off.
This is a very powerful tool for anticipatory anxiety. This is NOT, however, to be used during an actual flight, as what you need to do then is experience things just as they are without imagination, because imagination makes things worse than they are.
First Time Flying Anxiety
It's good to really understand that doing anything for the first time can cause anxiety. It may help to keep in mind that we, pilots, would not be doing this job unless it was safe. And if you wonder if it really is safe, consider that insurance companies are no fools, and they give us the same insurance rates as non-pilots.
Preparation For a Flight
Most people who fear flying have lots of ability to imagine things going wrong. Then, what you imagine causes physical tension, which then tends to make you think what you imagine is really taking place. So, to help stop this process, keep the visual part of your mind busy. Buy a number of magazines with splashy color pictures, and take them with you. Just flip through the pictures to keep the "visual" part of your mind too busy to make up imaginary images of disaster. You can take a further step by keeping the "auditory" part of your mind busy. Bring along a "Walkman" with several tapes.
Getting Onboard
Take some control for yourself. To start, be very aware that you have a CHOICE whether you fly or not, so that when you choose to fly, you have made that choice consciously and deliberately. Then, when you are on the airplane, you know you are there because YOU chose to - not as the victim of pressure by someone else. Then, before you board, go to the window of the boarding lounge and MEMORIZE VISUALLY what is outside the jetway and outside the airplane. Use your photographic memory to record in detail what you see. Then, when walking through the jet-way, you can remember what is outside; this helps reassure you that there IS an outside and the walls are not able to pressure you.
Meet the Captain
Go up to the cockpit as soon as you go onboard and introduce yourself to the captain, or ask a flight attendant to introduce you. Then you know the person entrusted with your safety knows you and cares about you. They will also make more informative announcements during the flight. This helps you not feel alone. You have personal contact with the person who finds this area his/her element. Your impression of the captain will assure you he/she is fully competent. Your sense of the captain's confidence makes a great difference in how you feel on the flight.
In Your Seat
Find out if there are any "eyeball" air outlets that you can control; turn them on. If not, place your hand near the air vents to prove to yourself that there IS air coming in. Stretch out your arms and examine PHYSICALLY how much space is yours. If you find yourself having breathing difficulty, hold your breath for one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three at the end of each exhalation and at the end of each inhalation.
Anticipate the "Noise Abatement" Power and Climb Reduction
On some takeoffs, we reduce the power after reaching about one-thousand feet (roughly twenty-seconds after liftoff), and it can be frightening if you don't know what it's all about. Imagine this: you get in an elevator on the ground floor, and press the button for the tenth floor. The door closes, and as the elevator starts to rise, you feel heavy. Then, as the elevator approaches the tenth floor, it has to slow down and stop. As it does, you feel "lightheaded." In an elevator you know what the feeling is about. You are just slowing down your ascent. But note this: when you start down from the tenth floor, you get a feeling of "lightheadedness." You get exactly the same feeling when slowing your rate of climb upward as when starting a descent downward. Both feel like falling.
The same thing happens in an airplane. After takeoff, we reduce the power to reduce the noise, but that means the airplane cannot climb as fast. When we pull the power and slow our rate of climb, it feels the same as falling. Actually, we are still climbing - but not as fast. The problem is compounded by hearing the engines get quieter, which can make you believe they have failed.
The antidote is to expect to hear the engines change power about twenty seconds after leaving the runway, and expect to get an "elevator feeling" like arriving at the tenth-floor. It is routine, but not used on every takeoff. When you first get on the airplane, turn left and go up to the cockpit, tell the captain you are an anxious flier and ask if there will be a big power change for "noise abatement" on today's flight.
Turbulence
First you need to know that turbulence is a problem for people only because people think turbulence is a problem for the airplane. Actually the airplane couldn't be happier than when in turbulence. It just doesn't bother airplanes, only those of us who think it bothers airplanes.
Second, it can help to understand that turbulence is natural. The jet stream is caused by earth rotation, and zips across the US up at 30,000 to 40,000 feet. If you fly in it, it is smooth. Also, if you are some distance horizontally or vertically from it, it is smooth. But when in its vicinity, friction between fast-moving jet stream sort of makes the nearby slow-moving air into ball bearings to roll across the sky on. Then, when you are flying in those rolling ball bearings of air, you get turbulence. When you go into one rolling up, the airplane goes up; then you come out the side which is rolling down, and the plane goes down.
Try this: practice matching every down with an up. It is easy to not notice the "ups" because most of our childhood fears are about downward motion (falling) not upward motion.
Landing
For most people, landing is not so bad, because they feel the ordeal is almost over. But if landing does frighten you, consider this. Many years ago, landing in bad weather was somewhat risky, but no more. Now modern jetliners lock on to radio signals which automatically guide the plane right down to touchdown on the runway.
A recently retired airline captain, Tom Bunn, MSW, CSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist who has been helping people overcome difficulties with flying since 1980. After serving as a fighter pilot in the USAF, he flew with Pan Am and United for thirty years.
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