Aerophobia-Fear of Flying!
The summer season makes everyone think of vacations. Since flights are cheaper these days and due to their time-saving practicality, air travel is widely preferred. How about fear of flying, though?
Especially in developed countries, planes have become one of the most preferred methods of transportation for work or vacation. However, for some people who are planning to fly, this is not pleasant at all. Unfortunately, fear of flying may become a phobia that may have negative personal or professional effects. Some people with this phobia get expert help, whereas a significant segment has accepted this fear as a part of their lives and opted for temporary solutions for their problems.
WHAT IS A PHOBIA?
Most of us are afraid of various things. These fears have different scales and significance in various parts of our lives. A child afraid of losing his family may grow into a teenager who is afraid of failing in school and an adult who is afraid of not being able to secure his future. Advanced versions of fears are called phobias. Excessive fear and avoidance of an object, activity or situation that would normally not cause fear is called "phobia". Phobia might occur due to anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. What separates phobia from regular fear is this:
- Unease or tension due to fear is connected to a specific object or situation.
- The scale of fear is excessive and not proportional to the object or situation triggering the episode.
- The person is fully aware his reaction is meaningless and excessive.
- The person insistently avoids the object of his fear. In the event avoidance is impossible, the encounter may cause increased heart-beat, difficulty breathing, sweating, hot flashes, and nausea or even fainting; thus, restricting the person's life.
Phobias have these signals and symptoms:
- Permanent fears or worries regarding certain situations or objects,
- Sudden reactions to feared objects or events,
- Effort to avoid what is feared
- Straying from normal and regular life and becoming detached due to fear
A person may display signs of phobia due to other problems:
- Physical problems: High blood pressure, asthma, indigestion and sleep disorders may cause phobias.
- Depression: Not being able to partake in the relaxing and fun activities enjoyed by others may cause phobias.
- Substance abuse: Some people with phobias try to avoid these by using alcohol or drugs. These people then become addicts, causing more problems instead of providing a solution.
Research shows around 10% of society is phobic, but this is estimated to be around 20-25%. The most important reason why occurrence of phobias is lower than expected is because people are not aware of their illness and so do not seek treatment. Phobias are observed more frequently in women.
SYMPTOMS OF PHOBIA
Anxiety symptoms arise when the person encounters their object, situation or activity of fear. Some of these symptoms are:
- Increased heart-beat
- Blushing
- Tremors
- Sweats
- Blurred vision
- Dyspnea
- Dryness of the mouth
- Difficulty swallowing, etc.
FEAR OF PLANES
Fear of planes may be observed on a person's first flight or suddenly occur after many previous flights. We can separate people with aerophobia into two groups. Some people are afraid to have a panic episode while on the plane, whereas others avoid flying or are afraid while flying because they fear a plane crash. Aerophobia may occur due to many reasons, the most common of which is "conditioning". Stimuli that exist during the flight play a significant part here. Sudden drops following turbulence, engine noise during take-off, pain in ears due to changes in pressure may all cause fear. Additionally, the feeling of not having any control over the flight, pre-existing fear of heights (acrophobia) or enclosed spaces (claustrophobia) and accompanying anxiety may trigger fear of flight. Also, generally, an occurrence of a phobia may usually be right after another negative incident experienced in life (ex. loss of a family member, divorce, separation, etc.)
Factors stated below are also important in the occurrence and continuance of aerophobia:
Modeling: A child whose parents or relatives have aerophobia may be expected to have the same phobia in the future.
Misinformation: Misinformation regarding planes or flying may cause aerophobia to occur. Some examples of such misinformation are:
“The higher the plane flies, the more the intensity of the crash."
“Most planes crash during take-off and not landing.”
Past experiences: Personal past negative in-flight experiences or stories of negative experiences of other people may cause the occurrence of this phobia.
TREATMENT METHOD
Fears must be addressed.One must resist avoiding the object or situation causing fear. The aim of phobia treatment is to prevent avoidance and reduce anxiety. Medical treatment alone is not sufficient. Psychotherapy methods may accompany anti-depressant medication. Untreated phobias may continue throughout an individual’s life-time and may be treated with medication, cognitive-behavioral treatment, relaxation techniques and hypnosis - if necessary. The length of treatment depends on the severity and intensity of the problem and patient's personality.
Some people with aerophobia who have to fly for business or other personal reasons may take alcohol or tranquilizers before the flight in order to manage their fear. This would only be an occasional (for that flight) and short-term solution. Experts are able to resolve this problem completely just byusing short term cognitive-behavioral treatment methods. In this method, the first issue to handle is the person's thoughts on flying.Structuring these with the therapist is called "cognitive structuring”. For example, the biggest fear of many people who suffer from aerophobia is to die in a plane crash. More intense and dramatic coverage of plane crashes as compared to car crashes causes people to think death risk of flights is higher than traffic accidents. In fact, the deaths caused by traffic accidents around the world are thousands of times more than those caused by plane crashes. An example of cognitive structuring would be to ensure thata person with aerophobia is made aware of this fact. Within the framework of cognitive structuring, the patient is given "homeworks" to complete outside of sessions. An example of this would be to ask the patient to come up with contradicting thoughts to the pre-existingthoughts that have initially caused the fear. Afterwards, therapist accompanied sessions may be used to adopt these new and contradicting thoughts.
With the restructuring of the cognitive system, the person is guided towards "implementation" in the next stage. The important factor at this stage is to minimize the problems that may occur during implementation. Here is an example to this:
The person with aerophobia is encouraged to fly increasingly longer distances, starting with a short-distance flight. These flights are tried first with the patient's therapist or someone he/she feels safe around and eventually solo. This can be re-structured accompanied by a therapist with certain manipulations based on the severity and status of the phobia.
Technical devices used in flight simulation may alsobe used in treatment of this phobia in the future.
A clinical psychiatrist must be consulted when medication is necessary. Incorrect medication may make the person even worse or even create new dependencies (ex. drug dependency). The dosage of medication is also very important and should be calibrated well. Taking the suggested dose of medication at planned times speeds up the healing process.