FEAR OF FLYING

By Captain Tom Bunn, MSW, CSW, LCSW

WHY FEAR OF FLYING?

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? Fortunately, SOAR has found ways to develop more "self-soothing."

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.

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