I recently released a post about iPhone application for people who suffer anxiety at the prospect of flying. It brought a hurricane to my inbox from the people who wants to try it and from the people who thinks it a total crap. So, I ended up finding out what alternative options are available in the markets and what actually means “fear of flying”. I had a nice conversation with Tom Bunn who is an airline captain and licensed therapist, and a President and founder of SOAR, Inc.

SOAR have a unique idea to approach and handle the fears about flying. Though it may be a form of claustrophobia, a fear of having a panic attack while trapped on a flight, or concern about physical safety, all these things fall under what is commonly called fear of flying.

The first courses on fear of flying were started in 1975 at Pan Am by Captain Truman “Slim” Cummings and at U.S. Air by Captain Frank Petee and therapist Carol Stauffer, MSW. I began working with Captain Cummings in 1980. All these courses offered statistics, information on how flying works, and relaxation exercises. A “graduation flight” with the instructor followed.
The “success rate” claimed was based on the percentage of course participants who took the graduation flight, generally around 90%. Yet, in most classes, 65% of the participants could fly, though with difficulty.
Some – counted as successful because they took the “graduation flight” – never flew again. The relaxation exercises were simply not enough to help people whose anxiety escalated rapidly into panic or near-panic.

If we control a situation, we often believe (whether really true or not) that we can make sure everything works out OK, such as when driving a car. Though it is not nearly as safe as flying, we FEEL safer because our hands are on the wheel.

Escape: this means not only a way out if things don’t go well, but a way to maintain a certain distance, either physically or psychologically.
On the ground, we do OK. But when we get aboard a plane, we have no control and no escape. Frankly, all this does is put up back to the level of ability to regulate emotions we were originally given.
Many fearful fliers try to escape psychologically. While on the flight, they try to keep the flight out of their mind. But when there is turbulence, this strategy fails because turbulence is too intrusive to be kept out of the mind. When it enters, though arise that the plane might fall, might come apart, or that the pilots might lose control.
Medication is not an answer. Doctors assume that since medication relieves anxiety on the ground that it will work in the air. But anxiety people suffer from on the ground is mostly anxiety about internal conflict, such as when two desires conflict, or one desire is in conflict with conscience. Medication makes it harder for the person to be aware of internal awareness. Thus, it works for anxiety due to conflict.
But flight anxiety, during the flight, turns to fear. Medication cannot keep fear out of the mind.

Captain Bunn says:
There is, so far as I can determine, only one solution, and that is to increase the client’s emotional strength so that anxiety becomes neither high anxiety, nor fear, nor panic. Once a person, by using the SOAR Program, trains the mind to not react to flying, the stress hormones that cause high anxiety, panic and fear are no longer triggered. Clients simply get on the plane and fly like everyone else flies.

Look at the free video about the courses here:

See the free video.

Related posts:

1. Virgin Atlantic Releases iPhone App for People Afraid of Flying
2. iPhone X-Plane 9.03 released – now with full ILS support
3. Four Sentenced in Flying Finn Fiasco
4. Top 4 posts in Planegrazy in 2009
5. Southwest Airlines Has an App for iPhone.