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Sky Blues:
The First Self-Treatment for Fear of Flying That Doesn't
Try to Make You Fly


Martin H. Williams, Ph.D.
Psychologist
Suite 285
1021 S. Wolfe Road
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
[phone]
email: [e-mail]
fax: [phone]

Foreward
An Electronic Self-Help Book for Fear of Flying

Greetings.  Thank you for being imaginative enough to
try something new--a downloadable self-help book.   I wrote this book
for myself and my patients.  It helped me get more organized in my
treatment of fear of flying, and it helped my patients better learn the material that I
covered in the office.  I am licensed psychologist, and I practice clinical psychology in
Santa Clara, California.  I am also a licensed
commercial pilot.

The book is organized in a certain order, but feel free
to skip around to the chapters you want to read.

I am thinking of this book as shareware.  There is no
publisher and no printing costs.  If you find it helpful, please send me
$5.  My address is:
Martin H. Williams, Ph.D.
Psychologist
Suite 211
1333 Lawrence Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95051

If you feel you need more help than you can get from a
book, I can consult with you by phone or e-mail.  You can call me at
[phone], or e-mail me at (America OnLine) COASTALZ. Some people need to
work in person with a psychologist or psychiatrist to overcome fear of flying.
If this is the case, I can tell you how to locate
reputable practitioners in your area.




Preface:  Kamikazes (With Boarding Passes!)

During World War II, the Japanese devised an almost
foolproof technique to attack American ships.  Japanese
pilots, in airplanes filled with explosives, flew
directly at a ship until they crashed into it.  Although
the pilot died, the ship was damaged, and maybe sunk.
These Kamikazes, as the pilots were called, were far
more effective than ordinary pilots, who launched
torpedoes from their planes.  The captain of a ship
could often steer away from an approaching torpedo, and
the torpedo would pass harmlessly by.  A Kamikaze,
though, could not be so easily evaded.  Kamikazes did
not launch torpedos or drop bombs.  They were the bombs.
Any evasive turn made by the ship was met with a change
of course by the oncoming Kamikaze, who ensured that the
intended collision occurred.  Kamikazes have been called
the first guided missles.
When I learned about Kamikazes as a child, I was
fascinated by the idea of piloting an airplane that was
designed to take you to your death.  I could not imagine
the frame of mind of the pilot who would fly one of
them; I found it astounding--the very idea of dying on
purpose.  What was the Kamikaze thinking when he fired
up his engine?  Did he hope to be shot down before he
hit his target, so he would have a chance be taken
prisoner and survive?
I had given little thought to Kamikazes until I
started treating people who were afraid to fly.  I
realized that many people who fear flying actually may
be in the same frame of mind as Kamikazes while they
wait for takeoff.  These fearful flyers expect to die
just as surely as any Kamikaze did.  Some fearful flyers
expect to die in the crash of their plane, others expect
of die of sheer fright, while others expect to die of
embarrassment after literally having nervous breakdowns
in flight.
Obviously, real Kamikazes had far more reason to
fear death than these modern passengers.  Kamikazes flew
in planes which were designed only to crash, while
modern passengers fly in planes which have been
designed, rather successfully, not to.  Nevertheless,
the subjective fear of today's frightened passengers is
as intense as it would be even if death were literally
guaranteed on every flight!  In my clinical practice, I
have never seen more intense anxiety than that which can
befall patients who are afraid to fly.  The fact that,
according to the odds, these fearful flyers will almost
certainly survive their flights does not make them any
less fearful.  After all, fear is based on our
subjective experience, not on objective facts.
Ironically, many of these fearful flyers, perhaps
like the Kamikazes, get on the plane despite their
wishes not to.  Maybe fearful flyers and Kamikazes both
get on board for the same reason:  To refuse is to risk
shame and humiliation--to be laughed at and belittled,
whether at the hands of others, such as family members,
or in one's own mind.
This book is intended to rescue the fearful flyer
from this dilemma of facing either abject terror, if he
or she flies, or utter humiliation, if he or she flees.
If you find yourself in this dilemma, you inevitably
feel bad because whichever decision you make--to fly or
to flee--is no good.  You experience either fear or
shame.  To get out of this dilemma, fearful flyers, like
Kamikazes, need to change one of two things:  They need
to believe that their flights will be safe and pleasant,
or, they need to feel free to skip the flight.  Meeting
the needs of fearful flyers--in whichever way is best
for them--is what this book is about.


Introduction

Have you ever sat in the seat of an airliner and
thought about dying in a crash?  Has it been an annoying
worry, or have you felt actual panic?  Do you hate the
thought of getting on a plane but still feel that you
must fly?  As you enter the jet, do you feel sorry for
all the other passengers--especially the children--who,
like yourself, are doomed?  Do you superstitiously avoid
certain flight numbers, seat numbers, or dates for
flying?  Do you drive long distances so you won't have
to fly?  When you board an airplane, do you find
yourself taking a mental inventory of parts that might
fail-- doors, windows, wings, and engines?  Do you worry
that the pilot, in a moment of inattention, will push
the wrong button with disasterous results?  If you have
any of these unpleasant experiences, you should read
this book.  You are afraid to fly.
Fear of flying is a problem for you, and this book
will try to help.  But, if you have read other books on
fear of flying, or have heard about other treatments,
this one may surprise you.  It does not harp on how
highly trained your flight crew is, and it does not bore
you by recounting how many times the airplane is checked
before each flight.  It does not insult your
intelligence by telling you how safe flying is.  This
book does not make you feel foolish, weak, unhealthy, or
inferior for being afraid.   In fact, this book does not
even try to get you to fly!  You may wonder whether a
book for fear of flying can still be worthwhile without
trying to make you fly.  Read on and see.
This book is different from the rest because it is
not only about your fear of flying.  It is also about
another problem, one that you may not have noticed, and
one that the other books on flight fear don't talk
about.  That problem is this:  Not only do you fear
flying, but you also are critical of yourself because of
your fear; you think there is something wrong with you
and not only with flying.
This book will try to fix that problem too.  The
tendency to turn against yourself because you fear
flying may be an even more important problem than the
fear of flying itself.  After all, fear of flying just
makes you hate airplanes, and hating airplanes is not
necessarily bad for your psychological health.  However,
disliking yourself is bad.  Disliking yourself is the
basis for depression, low self-esteem, and many other
negative emotional states.  That is why I believe any
treatment for fear of flying should do something about
the problem of people blaming themselves for having the
phobia.
If you have not wanted to buy other books on flight
fear, or have bought one and never read it, or have read
one and never practiced its homework assignments, it
could be because the book was biased in favor of flying
and against you.  This book is the first book for fear
of flying that is biased in favor of the fearful person,
and not necessarily in favor of flying.
A Conspiracy
I sometimes think that there is something of a
conspiracy against people who fear flying.  The
airlines, the air travel industry, psychologists and
psychiatrists, your family and friends, and even your
boss may all be conspiring to get you to fly.  The
airlines and air travel industry do it with their self-
serving advertisements which make flying seem like a
wonderful and beautiful experience.  Psychiatrists and
psychologists join the conspiracy by labeling you
"phobic" if flying bugs you, and they write books on how
to "cure" your "phobia."  (They could, instead, treat
you very supportively and even congratulate you for
refusing to do something--flying--that you don't want to
do.)  Finally, your family, friends, and boss join the
conspiracy by trying to make you get on a plane, since
they probably have some reason to get you to go
somewhere.
Part of this conspiracy, then, is that these
conspirators try to make you fly; they won't let you
avoid flying in peace.  However, this is not the whole
conspiracy.  The next part is worse:  The conspirators--
your family, your friends, your boss, and countless
psychotherapists, all try to convince you that if you
hate flying, there must be something wrong with you, and
not with flying.  They tell you that it is wrong not to
fly, that it is "a phobia," that flying is safe, that
the odds of dying in an airplane crash are less than the
odds of meeting Elvis' ghost at the Seven-Eleven.  They
tell you--and this is the heart of the conspiracy--that
flying is good, and that you need to change.   They do
not tell you that flying is unpleasant or that you are
merely exercising a legitimate preference if you choose
not to fly.  You are made out to be sick, or deficient,
or defective because you reject flying, and flying is
made out to be a perfectly good thing.  The outcome of
all this is that you, the victim of the conspiracy, get
convinced that you should try to fly, and, if you can't
fly, you blame yourself for what seems to be your
failure.
About Me
I want to rescue you from this conspiracy, and I
may even help you to fly at the same time.  My name is
Martin Williams.  I am a Psychologist licensed by the
California Medical Board, and a Commercial-Instrument
Pilot licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
You might think that with these credentials I would
quite naturally make it my goal to get you to fly.
After all, I am a pilot--someone who likes flying, and a
psychologist--someone who treats phobias, so you would
expect me to label you "phobic" and treat you for your
"disease" of fearing something that I like and that most
people tolerate.  But I will not.  I only want to make
you feel better, and I don't care whether you fly or
never fly.  My goal is to help you find what you need to
feel better about flying, or even about avoiding flying,
and, especially, about yourself.
Over the years, I have treated many people who,
like you, sought help for fear of flying.  I am writing
this to offer you a new way to think about flying and
the fear of it.  It is a way that has evolved from the
treatment I have done, and it is a way that, I believe,
makes people better able to fly.  It can also make
people better able to say "no" to flying, if that is
what they choose.  Believe it or not, I think that
avoiding flying could be the sanest thing you will ever
do--not because flying is really dangerous, but because
controlling your own life, and feeling in control of
your life, are far more important than whether or not
you get on an airplane.
A Different Kind of Book
I can guarantee you that this book is different
from the rest.  It is the only book on fear of flying
that does not try to get you on an airplane.  It is the
only book that does not condemn your fear.  It is the
only book that does not try to "cure" your fear.  It is
the only book on flight fear that might deem you a
success if you decide never to fly again.  I don't give
one whit whether you ever fly, and I know you have never
read such words in any book on flight fear.  Other self-
help books for fear of flying have a different goal from
this one.  Their goal is to get you to fly.   This book
is the first that does not set flying up on a pedestal
as something good.  For all I know, flying is bad, or at
least, bad for you.  Getting you to fly is not the main
goal of this book.
This book is written from the perspective of
"therapeutic neutrality." Therapeutic neutrality is an
old concept in psychotherapy that, unfortunately, has
been forgotten by many modern practitioners.
Therapeutic neutrality requires the therapist to remain
unbiased in treating the patient and not to make
judgments about what is best for the patient.  If the
patient talks about wanting to quit his job or get
divorced, the therapist does not judge whether such
decisions are right or wrong.  Instead, the therapist
carefully examines the patient's thoughts and feelings
from the patient's own viewpoint, without the therapist
trying to get the patient ultimately to make any
particular decision.  Making the patient more aware and
more in control of his or her thoughts and actions are
the goals of treatment, and getting the patient to do
any particular thing--like keep a job, stay married, or
fly--is irrelevant.
Sigmund Freud, whose "psychoanalysis" was the
beginning of most of today's treatments of emotional
problems, felt very strongly that it should not be the
province of therapists to give advice or guide people to
live life a certain way.  He believed that therapists or
physicians have no reason to consider themselves experts
on how one should live.  He only wanted his followers to
apply the psychoanalytic techniques correctly, and to
allow patients to come to their own decisions about
their lives.  Therapeutic neutrality was a good idea, to
Freud's way of thinking, if for no other reason than to
protect the patient from a therapist who might simply
give poor advice.
When I apply therapeutic neutrality to fear of
flying, it requires that I stringently avoid siding with
the aviation industry and with our modern culture, both
of which say that flying is good.  The judgments of
whether you should fly or not, or whether your avoidance
of flying is a bad thing or a good thing, are yours to
make as you see fit.  I do not presume to have the right
to tell you what is best for you.  All I can do is offer
you methods to resolve your conflict over flying, and
these methods can just as easily lead you away from
flying as towards it.  Unlike the authors of other books
on flight fear, I do not consider it my professional
duty to advocate flying.
The Other Books
Since I have mentioned other books on flight fear,
I should say a word or two about what I think of them.
I can put it simply:  I think they are little more than
arguments.  Instead of arguing with your spouse or boss,
who are trying to get you on the plane, you get an
argument from an author when you buy one of these books.
The typical argument that you get for your money
concerns flight safety.  Again and again you read that
everything on an airplane is checked and rechecked.
Again and again you read that the crew is trained and
retrained.  As the old joke says, "This airplane is
fully automated.  Absolutely nothing can go wrong, ...go
wrong, ...go wrong...."  You are told by these authors
that you are more likely to die of a bee sting than in a
plane crash.  You are told that your fear of flying is
irrational and that you must use courage to fight it.
You are told, basically, that you are a turkey for
fearing flying.
Depending of whether the author is a
psychotherapist or a pilot, the book will either harp on
how irrational your fear is or on the safety and
procedures of flying.  Some books harp on both.  When
you have finished reading the book, one of two things
will happen.  You will either get on the plane and fly,
or you will loathe and despise yourself for being such a
loser.  I pity anyone who reads a book like that and
then doesn't fly, for the book will have taught you to
label yourself a failure.
I hope to teach you some of the important things I
teach my patients in the office.  You will learn that
you have good reasons to fear flying, and that these
reasons have little to do with accidents and
malfunctions.  You probably fear flying because of the
particular experience you have when you fly.  You fear
it because when you fly you are locked into a confined
space, with no possibility of escape, and you are then
subjected to a variety of unusual movements and
sensations which are completely under the control and
understanding of others.  You fear flying because you
are not at home in this environment.  Some people are
(It's remarkable!), but you are not.
Most people who fear flying would be just as
fearful even if there were no such thing as airplane
crashes.  After all, many people are afraid of riding in
elevators, yet the chances of being hurt or killed in an
elevator are practically nil.  Some claustrophobic
people are even afraid of the confinement of a toilet
stall, although I strongly doubt that toilet stalls are
dangerous places to be.  Fears are not always based on
objective safety or danger.
I hope to give you a better understanding of all
this.  I believe that if you come to understand what
really makes you fearful, you can solve the problem--
whether solving it means flying more comfortably or,
with fewer regrets, refusing to fly.
What Is In This Book
This book will offer a variety of techniques and
exercises that will help you do two things--fly and not
fly--better than you do now.  How do you fly better?
That's easy.  You get on an airplane, without anxiety,
and you enjoy the flight.  How do you "not-fly" better?
That is more complicated.  Being better at not flying
means being able to refuse flights without feeling
humiliated, being able to use alternative means of
transportation without beating yourself up for it, and,
in general, being able to avoid flying without labeling
yourself a mental patient, a cripple, "a loser," or, in
any other way, feeling ashamed.  Keep in mind that
avoiding flying is not, in itself, a problem, but flight
fear is.  You only feel the fear of flying when, for
some reason, you do not feel free to avoid flying.  You
push yourself into the airport and onto the plane, and
the fear mounts.  If you could improve your ability to
not-fly, your fear would go away.  Unfortunately, the
fear might then be replaced by anger at yourself, for
being such a "weakling," or so "neurotic."
This is the essential conflict about flight fear:
If you fly, you feel scared, and if you avoid it, you
are angry at yourself.  Neither solution to the conflict
is completely satisfactory.  A successful treatment has
to either let you fly with comfort or avoid flying with
pride.  Which is best for you?  Do you want to fly
better or not-fly better?  You may not know, but don't
worry.  Use this book to work on both goals
simultaneously, and the solution that fits you best will
win out.
This book is organized into two sections.  In the
first section, I try to rescue you from the idea that
there is something wrong with you if you find flying
disagreeable.  We begin by thinking about the
differences between a phobia and a preference, and about
why it is that we try to "cure" the former but not the
latter.  Then we look at flying itself, focusing on what
is wrong with flying and why it bothers you.  We also
deal with the whole question of whether flying or
avoiding flying is the best solution for you.  We look
at the different sources of pressure to fly, and help
you to think about your right to do exactly what you
want in life--even if that means not flying.  Then, in
the second section, I offer you a self-treatment
program.  It includes education about flying, a look at
the skills you need to "not-fly," and a set of exercises
that will help you feel more relaxed about flying, or
not-flying, depending on which you need most to relax
about.
These exercises are similar to ones that have
helped many people overcome fears, and everything in
this book is based on techniques I use to treat patients
in the office.  While a self-help book cannot yield as
powerful or reliable results as actual treatment with a
psychologist, it certainly can provide all the help that
many people need, and provide a substantial benefit to a
great number of people.  When you have completed this
book, and followed the exercises, you probably will be
able to deal with flying in a much more relaxed and
self-directed way.  You may even feel that your problem
is solved.  It is also possible that you will still have
a problem that requires the help of a trained
psychologist.  If that turns out to be the case, then
this book will give you a head start on that treatment.
A Warning About The Author
I should warn you to be wary of me as you read this
book.  To paraphrase an airline commercial, "I love to
fly, and it shows."  Well that fits me to a "T."  The
part of me that is a psychologist wants to rescue you
from the pressure you feel to fly and wants you to
resolve your conflict about flying in the way that is
best for you.  However, beware of the part of me that is
a pilot.  This side of me could sneak into my writing in
ways of which I am unaware.  I am the sort of person who
always looks up when he hears an airplane, and I am the
sort who prides himself that he can identify the make
and model of an airplane from many miles away.  I always
ask for a tour of the cockpit when I fly on a new type
of airliner, and my wife endures periods of boredom as I
discuss the flying machine with the crew.  I have
piloted my family on round trips from San Jose to
Monterey, Napa, Lake Tahoe, or Sonoma, just to have
lunch, without setting foot off the airport.  The fun of
flying made the trips worthwhile.
I am even the sort of person who enjoys staying at
airport hotels, so he can watch the planes.  Last
Thanksgiving, I was out jogging near my hotel at the
Burbank Airport.  I confess that I doubled back on my
jogging route, so I could be positioned at the end of
the runway when an Alaska Airlines MD-80 thundered off
the ground.  Whereas some people would have looked at
that plane and thought, "How noisy.  What a nuisance.
Why did they put the airport there?"  I was thinking,
"Amazing!  They actually begin their right turn before
they leave the airport boundary."
I am a flying nut, and I really find it fun.  I
hope you don't feel too estranged from me if my writing
reveals that I love what some readers of this book
undoubtedly despise.  In my own defense, I want you to
know that I respect your right not to like the same
things as I, and I respect your right not to view flying
the way I do, or the way the airlines do.  In fact, you
could say that one of my purposes in writing this book
is to protect you from people like me!


Chapter One:  Why You Should Dislike Flying

Many people who fear flying seek psychological
treatment.  Why do they?  After all, you can live your
entire life without flying.  In fact, you can see the
whole world traveling only by land and sea.  But people
want to fly--even if they are fearful.  Flying is
usually the least expensive way to get somewhere.  It is
also the fastest.  Many of us simply lack the time to
conduct our business or vacation travel without flying.
In the modern world, flying can be nearly a necessity.
Some people, though, avoid flying, and some of
these people avoid it because it is dangerous.  Do you
believe flying is dangerous?  I do.  If you think you
just missed a word (like the word "not"), you didn't.
Flying is dangerous.  It is perfectly possible for you
to read this book, feel better about flying, get on an
airplane, and get killed in a crash.  The odds of your
flight crashing are very small.  In fact, someone
estimated that if you flew on a scheduled airline every
single day, your chances of dying in a crash would be
once every 29,000 years!  Nevertheless, it can happen.
Life is full of dangers--and that is unavoidable, but we
all strive to keep risks to a minimum.  Flying is
dangerous, safer than driving, but probably less safe
than staying home in bed--with the covers over your
head.
"The Good Old Flying-Is-Really-Safe"
Approach
One method of relieving flight fear is "the good
old flying-is-really-safe" approach.  This approach,
which is of very little help to most people who fear
flying, is included in every other book for fear of
flying, and you hear it from nearly everyone who wants
you to overcome your fear.  The keystone of this
approach is the statistical argument that flying is the
safest way to travel if you plan to travel at all.  In
fact, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
publishes a yearly Aviation Fact Card which tallies the
dangers of every form of transportation.  Each year, the
Aviation Fact Card provides data that point to the same
conclusion:  Hour for hour, mile for mile, passenger for
passenger, trip for trip, flying is the world's safest
way to travel.
Since "the good old flying-is-really-safe" approach
is so commonly used for (or against) those who fear
flying--despite its near uselessness--I will restate it
here, in my own words, just in case you are the one
reader who will find it helpful.  It begins like this...
Keep in mind the dangers of not flying.  More
Americans get killed by guns in their homes than in
airline crashes.  About 500 Americans die on the
highways for every one who is killed in an airplane.
Everything you do when you are not flying carries with
it a certain degree of danger, and some of these dangers
are eliminated once you take to the air.  You will not
die in an earthquake, flood, avalanche, or mudslide
while airborne, but you do incur these risks while on
the ground.  You will also probably not be robbed or
raped while flying, and you can be sure you will not be
involved in an automobile accident.  As comical as my
listing these dangers might seem, you should remember
that these are all real public health risks to which you
are exposed while on the ground, and to which you are
immune while in the air.  Remember, you will die in an
airliner on the average of once in every 11 million
flights, or, if you flew every day, you would die once
every 29,000 years.  In other words, even if you spent
your entire life flying in airliners the thing most
likely to cause your death would be old age...
There, I've given you "the good old flying-is-
really-safe" approach, and now it's out of my system.
Actually, someone who knows about your fear of
flying has probably already annoyed you with such
statistical arguments.  What these arguments generally
do, rather than help you, is to make you feel foolish
about your fear.  Flying is the safest way to travel,
but, to the person who fears flying, that is no
consolation.  When someone accosts you with statistical
arguments, instead of becoming less fearful, you
probably just feel embarrassed too.  You know you are
afraid; now you learn that you have no reason to be
afraid.  You're not only fearful, you find out, you're
unreasonable too!
  Fear of Flying May Not Be Phobia
 It is a very odd fact of human behavior that many
more people fear flying in airplanes than driving in
cars.  After all, we have all been at the scenes of
traffic accidents while few of us have ever been at the
site of an air crash.  We have all known of many more
people injured or killed on the highways than in the
air.  We must; each year about 50,000 people die on the
highways.  Yet, as a rule, we fear flying far more than
we fear driving.  Why?
Fear of flying is too widespread to be considered a
phobia.  A phobia is a psychological disorder, but fear
of flying is, to some degree at least, nearly universal
and should not be considered simply a psychological
problem.  Perhaps fear of flying is innate, something we
are born with.  Humans may have evolved to have a
natural fear of being off the ground.  After all, people
can get into a lot of trouble when they get high off the
ground.  We do not have the innate climbing skills of
monkeys, and, unlike birds, we cannot quietly glide to
the earth when we leave the high branch of a tree.
Maybe for our own good we are born with a healthy
respect for, and fear of, the sensations associated with
being high off the ground.  On the other hand, with
training people are able to overcome innate fears.  Some
people can train themselves to climb skyscrapers, or
mountains, or even fly military jets upside-down at the
speed of sound.
One question to ask is why do so many of us fail to
overcome our innate fear of flying.  I think the answer
is that we fear flying because it is foreign to most of
us.  We live in a society that depends on flying yet
keeps flying away from us, keeps us in the dark about
how it works, and causes us to be wary of it.  I am
convinced that if flying were as much a part of our
lives as driving is--from childhood on--we would easily
accept it.
An Imaginary World
Think about what that would be like.  Almost
everyone owns a car.  Imagine a world where everyone has
an airplane in the driveway.  Imagine walking outside
your front door to see your airplane parked next to your
home in your hangar.  As you looked up and down your
street, you would see your neighbors' airplanes parked
in front of their homes.  Streets would also serve as
taxiways, and every neighborhood would have a runway.
Let's take this fantasy further.  Imagine being as
familiar with airplanes as we are with cars.  Some of
your neighbors would work on their own airplanes,
changing the oil, for example, and filing nicks out of
the propellers.  You and almost everyone else would have
spent some time washing your airplane and vacuuming the
interior.  Children would grow up riding around in
airplanes, rather than in cars as they do now.
Teenagers would want to borrow the plane for dates.
They might even land at some isolated and romantic
airport--Lovers' Landing.  In this imaginary world
everyone would know the meaning of a holding-pattern, a
glide-path, a radar traffic advisory, just as we are now
well acquainted with stop-signs, speed-limits, and
windshield wipers.
Airplanes would be no safer in this imaginary
world--they are already safer than cars, but we would
fear them less because of our familiarity with them.  It
has been said that familiarity breeds contempt, but it
is also true that familiarity makes us comfortable.
People do not fear what they are accustomed to.
Remarkably, this can be true even for things that most
of us think are really scary.  Consider beekeepers.
They get themselves covered with bees as part of their
daily work.  Many of us become upset to be near even a
single bee.  Beekeepers are accustomed to bees, while
most of the rest of us are not.  You can become
accustomed to nearly anything.  The problem with flying,
though, is that most of us never have the opportunity to
get accustomed to it.
Airplanes are Foreign
Now look at the real situation regarding flying:
Airliners are operated in ways we do not understand by
people we do not know.  Occasionally we find a pilot who
tries to explain something to us about how it all works.
Typically, we get lost in a barrage of complex
terminology that apparently means something to the pilot
but means little to us.  As a child, recall learning
that airplane wings make planes fly because the top of
the wing is curved and the bottom of the wing is flat,
and that this creates lower air pressure above the wing
than below it.  This explanation didn't mean anything to
me then, and I must confess, it still doesn't help me
understand why airplanes fly.  Most of us, whether we
fear flying or not, have no idea why airplanes can fly.
Furthermore, our picture of an airplane cockpit is a
place full of dials and gauges, levers, pushbuttons, and
digital displays, too numerous to grasp and completely
incomprehensible.  How many of us have ever been in a
cockpit long enough to start figuring it out?  If we
spent as little time in kitchens as in airplane
cockpits, kitchens might scare us too.
I am certain that many people would lose their fear
of flying if they could just spend a week in an
airliner, with a pilot, parked on the ground, and get to
know it.  If an airliner could become as familiar as a
kitchen, it might start to feel as comfortable.  We do
not fear kitchen fires, as numerous as they may be,
simply because of our familiarity, and consequent
comfort, with kitchens.  I have injured myself numerous
times in the kitchen--getting various small painful
cuts, scalds and burns--yet I do not approach the
kitchen with fear, and I do not know anyone who does.
If you think about it, it's somewhat surprising that
"kitchen phobic" people are not more numerous.  You
would think with all the repeated minor injuries that
occur in kitchens, at least a few people would develop
that fear.
There may be a psychological principle that
explains why we naturally overcome whatever fear we have
of kitchens but not of flying.  The principle is called
"desensitization"--if you spend enough time around a
certain feared thing, and if nothing bad happens to you,
you will get used to it and relax.  This will work even
better if the time spent includes doing something that
is inherently pleasurable, like eating.
Think of the countless hours we spend in relaxed
comfort in the kitchen, often while pleasantly abating
our hunger.  We may spend as much as 1000 hours for each
unpleasant cut or burn.  We naturally and automatically
get the negative feelings about kitchens out of our
systems.  Unfortunately, most of us never have the
opportunity to become desensitized to flying in a
similar way.
If we did want to get desensitized to flying by
spending many hours in a flying environment of airports,
airplanes, hangars, and so on, what exactly is it that
we would get desensitized to?  What are the unpleasant
aspects of flying that most of us need to overcome--the
aviation equivalents to the knife cuts, burns, and
scalds that cause unpleasantness in the kitchen?  What
is it that really bothers us about flying?
I have already said it is not crashes.  Crashes do
not cause flight fear because they are rare and because
almost none of us are exposed to them, except by
watching sensationalized media coverage.  Even if you
argue that we see the aftermath of crashes on television
and read about them in newspapers, you cannot explain
flight fear on that basis.  If that sort of negative
information were a significant source of fear, we would
also fear many other things that are common media fare.
We would fear hotels, because of the frequent hotel
fires that make the news, many more Mid-Westerners would
fear tornados, and we would certainly be more fearful of
driving than we are now.  What news show or newspaper
can let a day go by without one or more good car wreck
story?  But how often do you recall last night's
television coverage of some fireman using the "jaws of
life" to remove an accident victim from a car as you
enter your own car the next morning?  The answer is that
you hardly remember.  Also, keep in mind that this is
not the way many other phobias originate.  Few people
who fear snakes, elevators, the confinement of a toilet
stall, or the crowds in a shopping mall have actually
experienced any real negative consequences of these
situations.
No, the cause of flight fear is not the rare crash.
Crashes are just something on which we dwell after we
are already afraid.  The typical cause of flight fear
is, instead, the familiar, commonplace, and unpleasant
aspects of nearly all flights.  In fact, it is in the
very nature of flying itself to cause fear.  If you
doubt this, keep reading.
Airplanes Are Thrill-Rides!
One of my chief purposes in writing this book is to
rescue you from the idea that you should like, or
accept, flying.  Flying is presented by the airlines as
something nice and pleasant, or, at least, innocuous.
If you buy this viewpoint, you will think of yourself as
somewhat imbalanced or weak if you fear flying.  Why
should you fear something that is basically nice,
unless, of course, there is something seriously wrong
with you?
I want to save you from this viewpoint; I want to
present the other side.  Flying is often unpleasant; it
is often not nice.  Could it be that people who fear
flying are simply reacting to aspects of flying that the
rest of us ignore, but which are, nevertheless, very
real?  Consider this remarkable truth:  Designers of
amusement parks spend great sums of money to create
thrill-rides that give customers the very same
unpleasant sensations that are part of almost every
airplane flight.  When you experience these unpleasant
sensations at Disneyland, for example, you are happy.
After all, you pay to be thrilled, and you want to get
thrilled.  Teenagers, especially, appreciate amusement
park rides that ordinary people find unpleasantly
disorienting or even nauseating.  On the other hand,
when you experience similar unpleasant sensations on an
airplane, you feel miserable, unless you happen to be
the sort of person who can ignore them, or the even
rarer type who enjoys being twisted, turned, and
accelerated.
The airlines, in their advertisements, pretend that
airplanes and thrill rides have nothing in common.  You
have never seen a television advertisement for United
Airlines that shows the meal cart vibrating, with all
the little liquor bottles clinking together and the
flight attendant trying to steady herself, as the plane
encounters turbulence.  You have never seen it, but we
all know it happens.  In fact, don't quote me, but I
sometimes wonder whether serving meals in flight
actually invites turbulence.  (Even severe turbulence
won't cause a crash, by the way, but it may cause
bruises or sprains to whoever is not wearing a seat
belt.)
What I have done below is break the taboo about
talking about just how unpleasant the sensations of
flying can be.  Since I don't work for the airlines, am
not trying to advertise for them, and have nothing to
gain if you fly, I can be frank.  Perhaps if you have
condemned yourself for fearing flying, what follows will
make you feel that there might be a method to your
"madness."  It might make you like yourself better, once
you realize that your fear has been based on something
real: things about flying that really are bad, rather
than based on your own weakness or neurosis.
I want to be the first psychologist whose treatment
for fear of flying will not "drive you insane."  Am I
suggesting that other treatments for fear of flying do
drive people insane?  Well, yes, sort of, although I am
exaggerating a bit.  As far as I am concerned, anybody
who treats flight fear and who says or implies that it
is wrong, weak, irrational, or somehow unhealthy to fear
flying is driving you nuts.  They are making you feel
bad about your feelings when there may be nothing
unhealthy or abnormal about your feelings--except that
having them can be inconvenient if you need to travel
much.
The positive and healthy approach to treating
flight fear is to validate the fear by telling people
they have every right, and good reason, to be afraid.  I
will say you have little reason to expect to die, but,
since fear is not based on the probability of death or
injury, and is based instead of the subjective
experience of unpleasantness, you have every reason be
afraid.  If you read what follows, you will see that
nearly everything about flying can be unpleasant or
frightening.  Just because you happen to be someone who
is sensitive to these things, does not mean there is
something wrong with you.
Here is a partial list of the unusual sensations
that are part of flying (the same sensations for which
teenagers pay good money at amusement parks).  As you
read this list, you may be amused to find me writing as
if these aspects of flying are intended to be scary.
Really, I am just exaggerating to make a point.  My
point is that if the designers of airplanes and airports
had set out to create odd, disquieting, and disorienting
sensations in passengers, they would have succeeded
quite well considering what it actually feels like to
fly in even the most modern jet airliners.  Of course,
all the strange sensations and experiences that I
describe below were not added to flying intentionally;
they are simply "side-effects" of the way flying works.
Airplanes cannot be designed to avoid giving you the
unpleasant sensations they do.  Some improvements have
been made over the years, like radar which allows
airplanes to avoid severe turbulence in thunderstorms.
A new form of radar is on the way soon that will give
pilots warning of the turbulence that occurs in clear
weather.  Unfortunately, though, most of what bothers
people about flying cannot be avoided.  It will be there
for the foreseeable future.  Nevertheless, you don't
have to like it.
Aspects of Flying
As Amusement Park Thrill Rides
1.  The eerie sensation of watching the flight
attendant close and seal the cabin doors.  As you watch
this happen, you realize that the door will be reopened,
not when you want it to be, but when the strangers who
operate the airplane decide to open it.  On a long
flight, you could be sealed in the airplane cabin for an
entire day and part of the night.  Furthermore, with
unanticipated weather-delays, the exact time you will
spend locked-up is difficult to predict.  On this basis
alone, many people strongly dislike flying, and, if you
stop and think about it, there are very few situations
in most of our lives in which we are locked into a place
without being free to decide when to leave.  Considering
the cost in jet fuel of an unneccesary landing, and the
fact that such a landing would delay all the other
passengers, making them late for appointments and
connecting flights, you can understand why the flight
crew will ignore anything you do or say about your need
to get out of the airplane once that door shuts.  Even
if you insist that you are going to die of fright, your
crew will not land and let you out, although they may be
sympathetic. You are literally locked in, and there is
no way around that.  Of course, all the other passengers
are locked in also, but most of them have ways to avoid
noticing that, or thinking too much about it.
If I were designing this aspect of flight as an
amusement part ride to thrill teenagers, I would name it
"King Tut's Tomb," for you are locked inside the
airplane cabin as securely as you would be if you really
were inside the Great Pyramid.  There is absolutely no
way to open the door and escape until "they"--the
strangers who operate the machine--permit you to leave.
Furthermore, you have only an approximate idea of when
that will be, and, often, so do they.  Even if you have
carefully calculated your arrival time, and have hoped
and planned to see the flight attendant unlocking the
cabin door at that time, there is always the possibility
that an unanticipated weather delay will occur.
My wife and I were once passengers on a United
Airlines Boeing 727 on a short scheduled flight from Los
Angeles to Monterey, California.  The estimated flight
time was about 50 minutes.  One thing that makes
Monterey picturesque is the morning coastal fog it gets
most of the summer.  On this particular day, the fog was
too close to the ground to make a landing safe and
legal.  Even though extremely accurate navigational
devices can take the airplane literally to the runway--
automatically and on autopilot--the pilot is required by
law actually to see the runway before the airplane
descends below an altitude of 200 feet, and the clouds
were just too low that day.  (At airports that are much
larger than Monterey, and in airplanes more modern than
the 727, the pilot does not need any visibility at all
to land.  The airplane will find the runway, land, and
roll to a stop--all automatically, while completely
enshrouded in clouds and fog.)
What made this trip worse for any passenger who was
hoping to get off the plane on schedule was that the
flight crew, the weather forecasters, and the control
tower staff at Montery all expected the fog to lift "any
minute."  Typically, as the day warms up, the fog lifts
and finally evaporates.  Because of this expectation for
improving weather, the pilot kept circling over the
ocean, waiting for the word from Monterey Tower telling
us it was legal to come on in.  Around and around we
flew, waiting for the fog to lift.  What was expected to
be a 50 minute flight lasted an extra hour, and, at the
end of that time, we still were unable to land at
Monterey.  Instead, we flew to San Jose to refuel and
wait for the fog to lift.  We finally took off for the
20 minute flight from San Jose to Monterey after an
additional half-hour wait on the ground.
This is only one example of how passengers really
are locked up in flight without any idea of when they
will be set free.  If that aspect of flying bugs you, be
assured it is a real problem.  You are not making it up,
and you are not crazy.
 2.  The disorienting sensation of moving backwards
away from the gate.  Let's say you have accepted the
whole business about being locked-in.  Maybe it is not
even bothering you.  So you take your seat, and wait for
your plane to leave the gate.  Even something as simple
as moving the airplane away from the gate can be a
strange experience.  To begin with, you move backwards
at most airports.  You may hear a very loud noise, feel
a vibration, and then find yourself moving.  This noise
and vibration are caused by the jet engines running
briefly at high power while the thrust is directed
towards the front of the plane to make it move
backwards.  Only certain airplanes, like the popular MD-
80 are capable of backing themselves away from the gate.
The experience, however, is quite strange.  After all,
we are most comfortable moving forward.
On some airplanes, you move backwards in near
silence, because the airplane is pushed by a tractor.
Then, without warning, the silence is broken as the crew
start the airplane's own engines.  The tractor is
attached to the nose-wheel of the airplane, and the nose
wheel can be made to aim in almost any direction.
Often, after the plane has been pushed back away from
the gate, it will be pivoted, by pushing the nosewheel
with the tractor, to make it face a different direction.
The experience feels like you, and the airplane, are
sitting on a giant lazy-Susan, revolving around.  An
airplane on the ground, unlike your car, can literally
turn around and around without needing to move forward
at all.  This can be quite dizzying.  To complete the
experience, there is no rear window, and you cannot see
out the front window, so you have little idea where you
are going.  All you can see is the view to the side,
which provides you with practically no information about
where you are going, or even where you have been, and,
especially, what is going on.
If I ran an airport as an amusement park, I would
call this "The Jet-Powered Merry Go Round," and I would
expect satisfied customers to rave about how confused,
and possibly dizzy, they were.
3.  The odd sensation of taxiing to your runway
while only being able to look sideways.  Finally, the
tractor is disconnected, and the airplane begins to move
forward, under its own power, on a series of roads
called taxiways that will take it to the runway where it
will take-off.  As you taxi, all you can see is the view
out your small sideways-facing window, so you have
little idea where you are or where you are heading.  You
have no idea how long you will continue to taxi--a few
hundred feet or several miles.  Each turn is a complete
surprise, and some turns seem to completely reverse your
direction of travel.  I have known pilots who managed to
navigate across half the world to an airport but then
have a hard time finding their way around the confusing
maze of taxiways.
While you taxi, you feel large and small bumps,
depending on the condition of the taxiway (believe me,
at San Francisco International, an airport built on
landfill in San Francisco Bay, they are memorable).  At
some airports, you taxi past what amount to aviation
junk yards, and you meditate on the remains of ancient
and abandoned airplanes.  Are these airplanes that got
lost while taxiing, many years ago, and never found?
For added thrills, you occasionally hear the loud roar
and vibration of nearby airplanes taking off.  Usually,
you can hear them, but not see them, or where they came
from.  Just to make things more eerie, you smell the
distinctive odor of jet fuel.  This odor acts as a
trigger for all your memories, thoughts and feelings
about flying, since you only smell it at airports.
At my airport amusement park, I would call this
ride "The Mysterious Bumping Maze."
4. The dramatic sensation of takeoff.  This is the
pinnacle of physical sensations related to flying.  With
a loud roar and continuous vibration, you are thrust
back into your seat to experience a profound sense of
forward acceleration.   Regardless of what kind of car
you drive, and what claims its manufacturer has made for
it's acceleration, this is bigger and more dramatic.
Although a Porsche might beat a Boeing 767 in a race
from zero to 100 miles per hour, at 100 mph the Porsche
driver is only seconds away from running out of steam,
while the Boeing is just beginning to come into its own.
Unless you are a fighter pilot or professional race car
driver, the acceleration of takeoff in an ordinary
passenger jet is the strongest acceleration you will
ever feel in your life.  For a few seconds you are
pushed back into your seat by the power of the jet
engines, and it is the nature of jet engines, unlike
piston engines, to develop more and more power the
faster they go.
But forward acceleration is only part of the
complex set of sensations to which you are subjected
during takeoff.  As the plane first rolls along the
runway, you feel some bumps, just as you would on a
road.  Also, during the takeoff roll, the pilot will
lock the nose-wheel which is used to steer the plane for
slow taxiing, and will begin to use the rudder on the
tail to steer the plane.  You will feel some side-to-
side movement as the pilot presses on the rudder pedals
to steer the airplane.  If the crosswinds are strong,
this can even feel like a sideways lurching.  As the
airplane develops speed, the wings will start to carry
some of the plane's weight.  At this point, the plane
might seem like it is floating along the runway rather
than driving like a car.  If you look out the window at
the terminal buildings, you will notice that you are
moving very fast--faster than you have ever gone in a
car.
Up to this point, the airplane has only subjected
you to experiences with which you are already familiar.
It has acted like a bus--a bigger,  faster and louder
bus, but still a bus.  But next the airplane will begin
to do things that busses do not do, as it reaches its
flying speed and the pilot pulls back on the control
yoke.  The nose wheel lifts off the ground, and you
watch the front of the cabin start to rise.  The
airplane points towards the sky, and the main landing
gear lift off the ground.
Please do not overlook the major thrill-potential
of the moment when the aircraft leaves the ground.
Every amusement park has loads of rides that take you up
in the air.  For the younger kids, there are the small
airplanes or bumblebees that go round and round a few
feet off the ground.  For the older ones, there are the
roller coasters in many varieties, and a whole genre of
rides that take you up high and make you momentarily
fall rapidly down.  The amusement park operators
understand that being high off the ground is inherently
scary.  Based on your own personality, you have the
potential to feel thrilled or scared at the moment you
leave the ground, but regardless of which you feel, it
is certainly a moment that is hard to ignore.
Just to make sure you notice this moment, it is
heralded by a series of thuds.  As each set of wheels
lifts off the ground, it's shock absorbers fully extend
with an audible thud.  More thuds soon follow as the
landing gear doors fully open (thud), the landing gear
come to a rest inside the wheel wells (thud), and the
landing gear doors slam shut (thud).  Noises continue as
you hear the hydraulic and mechanical whirring sounds of
the flaps partially, and then fully, retracting.  By
now, you are a couple of thousand feet above the ground-
-flying.  To add to your thrills, the pilot typically
cuts back on the engine thrust at this point.  The
airplane continues to climb, but at a slower rate.  What
you feel, though, at the moment power is reduced, is
rather exciting:  You feel as though you, and the
airplane, have begun to fall.  Like being high in the
air, the feeling of falling is standard amusement-park
fare.  Kids love it; they can hardly get enough of it.
As you know all too well, many grown-ups find falling to
be a horrifying sensation.
For my amusement park customers, I'd call this one
"The Rocket Ride into Thin Air."
5. Turning.  Here is an experience that teenagers
at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk wait in line an hour to
savor on the Giant Dipper Roller Coaster.  As you look
out the airplane's window at the homes, office
buildings, and cars below, you will notice your
perspective changing as the airplane turns.  The cabin
tilts sideways in the direction of your turn.  For a
right turn, the right wing lowers; for a left turn, the
left wing lowers.
This experience is particularly strange because
your body does not lean over in the tilted airplane
cabin.  Even in a sharp turn, in which the airplane
cabin is tilted 30 degrees to the left or right, you
body does not feel tilted.  If you had a very full glass
of water sitting on the tray-table in front of your
seat, the water would not spill as the airplane banked.
This is because of centrifugal force.  It is not easy to
explain exactly how it works, but the pilot uses the
rudder on the tail of the plane to ensure that the rate
at which the plane turns is coordinated with the rate at
which the plane banks, or leans to the side, so that the
glass of water will not spill.  In fact, one back-up
instrument that helps the pilot smoothly coordinate
turns is hardly more complicated than the glass of water
itself.  It is a metal ball which rolls inside a curved
glass tube.  If the ball stays in the center of the
tube, the turn is coordinated, and the water will not
spill.
You might be thinking, "How nice, the water won't
spill," but there is an aspect of these "coordinated
turns" that is not nice.  If you look out the window,
your eyes will tell you that you are leaning over to one
side, but your sense of balance in you inner ear will
tell you that you are sitting straight up.  This is a
very confusing and unpleasant sensation for many people.
Once again, it is a sensation that is unnatural and that
you do not get to experience too many places.  You do
experience this same sensation while riding a bicycle.
In a sharp turn, the bicycle is leaned over, but
centrifugal force holds you and the bicycle in perfect
balance.  I believe, though, that this sensation is more
eerie in a airplane, because the passenger cabin is so
large, the windows are small, and you are simply not in
touch with your outside surroundings as you are on a
bicycle.
This is another strange and possibly nerve wracking
sensation of flying--a sensation that kids seek at
thrill-rides and that airline passengers can not avoid
when flying.  At my amusement park, this one would be
called "The Confusing, Tilting Gyroscope Ride."
6.  Clouds.  Think of how some amusement park rides
add to your thrills by making the lights go out to keep
you from seeing where you are, or which way you are
moving.  You get the same experience on airplanes when
you fly into a cloud, or over uninhabited terrain or a
large body of water at night.  Whatever happens in the
cloud--whether the airplane climbs, descends, levels-
off, or gets bumpy--takes place with you having no
visual references.  If you fail to see how unpleasant
this can be, try riding in a car while blindfolded.  It
is not much fun.
Pilots are well aware that they can get completely
disoriented by their own confused sense of balance when
the cockpit windows are solid gray (when flying in
clouds), solid white (when flying in snow), or solid
black (when flying at night over uninhabited terrain,
water, or between cloud layers).  When all the pilot
sees out of the windows is the color gray, white, or
black, the windows might just as well be covered with
wallpaper.  At such times, the windows provide no useful
information for flying the airplane.  For this reason,
the pilots have instruments that let them see exactly
what the plane is doing when visual reference is lost.
Once a student pilot gets the hang of using these
instruments, he or she becomes nearly as comfortable
looking at them as looking out the window.   Instrument-
rated pilots literally are as comfortable flying by
instruments as they are looking out the window.  They
had better be, since they must spend hours at a time
with nothing to see out the window but gray, white or
black.
The instruments tell you up from down, and
everything else the pilot usually would see by looking
out the window in clear weather.  Pilots are trained to
rely on their instruments and to ignore the possibly
erroneous messages their sense of balance may be sending
them.  You, however, are in the cabin with no view out
the window, no instruments, and no ability to form a
mental picture of what the plane is doing.
If this makes you uncomfortable, it is perfectly
understandable.  After all, Disneyland's "Space
Mountain" roller coaster operates in darkness to add to
your thrills, and that is as good a name as any for this
amusement-park ride.
7.  Bumps.  For many passengers this is the "piece
de resistance" of the scary aspects of flight, and it is
what causes commercial air travel to have the most in
common with thrill-rides.  At any point after the plane
leaves the ground it can encounter turbulence.
Turbulence can be a single small bump, or it can be a
continuous series of very large bumps, or it can be
anything in between.  It can feel like driving on a very
bumpy road, or it can feel like riding a roller-coaster
with a series of sharp uphills and sudden downhills, not
to mention the frightening sensation of falling.
Turbulence can occur in clear air or in clouds.  Some of
it is very predictable, with the pilot knowing exactly
when it will occur and how severe it will be.  Some
turbulence, though, is a complete surprise to both the
passengers and crew (although it is only the passengers
who start wondering whether the wings will fall off.
They won't.).
At the Great America Amusement Park, near my home,
this sort of ride is called "The Demon."
This Is What Caused Your Fear
As entertaining as it may have seemed, my purpose
in comparing airplane flights to thrill-rides has been
very serious.  I believe that these thrilling aspects of
flying are the primary source of flight fear.  When
people are thrilled beyond the point where it is fun,
they feel scared.  If you want to understand flight
fear, I say forget about airplane crashes.  Crashes are
few and far between.  They are too rare to cause flight
fear, and they do not cause flight fear.  They are
merely something we worry about after we are already
afraid.  In my twenty years of practice, I have never
seen a patient who feared flying and who had actually
been in a plane crash, although I have seen hundreds of
patients who feared flying.  (I have also seen a few
crash survivors who still do not fear flying, but these
are military pilots who will probably never fear
anything that bothers normal people.)
Crashes are simply not a significant source of
flight fear.  The fear is caused, instead, by the
thrilling, disquieting, disorienting nature of routine
flights.   All of the "amusement park rides" that I just
described are real aspects of nearly every flight.
These physical and psychological sensations are the
cause of flight fear in people who are susceptible.
I have seen many patients whose first experience of
flight fear occurred when a commonplace flying
discomfort became just a little bit exaggerated.  For
example, one man became fearful after a flight that was
just a little more bumpy than his previous flights, and
when a fellow passenger yelled out, "Ride 'em, cowboy."
One woman, a flight attendant, became fearful after a
flight from Hawaii during which the cabin became
unpleasantly hot.
The fear is caused not by the rare crashes, but by
the common and unpleasant aspects of every single
flight.  Because I believe this is the cause of the
fear, I believe that this is where treatment for the
fear must focus.  Somehow, fearful passengers must make
their peace in one of two ways with the annoying and
unpleasant aspects of routine flights.  If they want to
fly in greater comfort, they must accept these movements
and sounds, the lack of visual references outside the
window, and the lack of control over what is happening.
They must learn to expect all the "amusement park rides"
to happen to them, rather than expecting the airplane
cabin to feel completely motionless, as it appears in
the television advertisements.  If they can accept, and,
ultimately, become accustomed to what really happens in
flight, they can learn to fly.  If they cannot adapt to
the unpleasantness that really takes place, they must
refuse to fly, and they should recognize that they are
refusing for some very good reasons.

Chapter Two:  What Is a "Phobia," and What Kind of
Treatment Does It Need?

Something funny happens to many psychologists when
a patient comes to them with a phobia.  These
psychologists forget everything they know about teaching
people to be independent and assertive, and they focus
only on getting the person over the phobia.  They make
it their goal to get the patient to approach, rather
than avoid, the situation that is frightening.  They
generally do not ask the patient questions like, "How
will resolving the phobia help you become a happier,
more autonomous person?" or, "Why do you suppose you
call what you have 'a phobia,' when you could instead
just stay away from the thing you fear?"  Instead, these
psychologists go after that phobia like a dog after a
bone.  They automatically assume the phobia is bad, that
the person should not avoid the feared situation, and
that the person's feelings of anxiety about the feared
situation are meaningless.  To put it mildly, they
become shortsighted.
I find this somewhat surprising because so much has
been written by other psychologists about the importance
of doing exactly the opposite--helping people to take
charge of their lives and do exactly, and only, what
they want to do.  For example, a few psychologists would
look at your fear of flying and conclude that you need
to avoid flying even more!   They would say that the
reason you have a "phobia" is that you are unable to
have a "preference."  They would say that you should be
able to express your opposition to flying in a more
direct and effective manner.  They would want you to
stand up tall, be proud of yourself, and just say that
you don't like to fly and, therefore, you won't.
Psychologists who see things this way might actually
help you to feel proud of your anti-flying feelings
instead of trying to suppress and overcome them.
What is a Phobia?
When someone has a "phobia," what exactly do they
have?  Let me try to answer this question by asking
another question.  Do you have a "phobia" of stepping in
used bubble gum?  This may be a stupid question, but it
will help me make a point.  No one would ever say you
have a phobia of stepping in used bubble gum, yet I know
that stepping in used bubble gum is something you won't
do--at least, not on purpose.  Furthermore, if you do
step in it, you will react with a degree of negative
emotion that is probably as severe as some of the worst
cases of fear of flying, yet no one would call your
negative emotionality a "sickness."  Now, how do we
decide whether your "avoidance" of used bubble gum is a
phobia or not?  Well, we probably decide based on our
shared opinion of used bubble gum.  Obviously, everyone
agrees that this is not something one wants to step in,
so people who won't are "normal," rather than "phobic."
There are many kinds of situations, though, that
are less clear cut than the example of stepping in used
bubble gum.  There are some situations that some people
avoid and, because of their avoidance, get labeled
"phobic."  However, other people avoid these same
situations without getting labeled anything.  One person
has a "phobia" of heights, let's say, while another just
"hates" high places.  The first person gets a bad label-
-"phobia," while the second may get labeled "eccentric"
or may get no label at all.  The first person would try
to endure a room on a high floor of the hotel, and be
angry at himself if he feels nervous.  In contrast, the
second person merely would insist on a ground-floor
room, preferably pool-side.  I want to suggest a key
difference between these two hypothetical people that
will help us understand what a phobia is:  If you are
angry at yourself for avoiding something, your avoidance
will probably get labeled "phobic"--either by yourself
or by someone else, but if you are not angry at yourself
for avoiding something--if you are on your own side
about it--your avoidance will merely be called "a
preference."  The word "phobia" is a slur; the word
"preference" is not.
With this in mind, let's say you go to a
psychologist because you have a "phobia" of flying.  The
psychologist has at least two choices in planning your
treatment.  On one hand, the psychologist could try to
"overcome" your phobia by getting you to fly.  If
treatment is successful, you would no longer be phobic
because you would be able to do the thing, flying, that
you formerly feared.  On the other hand, the
psychologist could try to get rid of your phobia by
helping you to have a preference instead.  Instead of
curing you by getting you to fly, the psychologist could
cure you by getting you to feel freer to avoid flying.
If you could comfortably avoid flying, your phobia would
be gone.  You would be "cured" because you would no
longer feel distressed about having to fly, and lack of
distress is the ultimate criterion for successful
treatment.  Becoming "cured" by freely avoiding flying
is just as valid a cure as any other.  What makes this
especially important is that many people, no matter what
kind of treatment they receive, or how much money they
spend on it, will never learn to be comfortable flying,
and cannot ever be "cured" in that way.  These people
can only be helped, if at all, by helping them to become
better able to avoid flying.  They will choose to travel
by train, bus, or ship, or, when they want to, they will
stay home.  This is the only kind of help that many
people really want.
A Phobia is a Sign of Conflict
A phobia comes from a conflict inside of you.  You
might be unaware that there even is a conflict, but,
because of this conflict, you feel stuck.  Many
different conflicts could lead to the fear of flying,
but I will only focus on the most common one.  The two
sides of this conflict are:  1) part of you is
uncomfortable about flying, and 2) part of you thinks
you should fly anyway.  If you did not have this
conflict, you could solve your problem in one of two
easy ways.  You could fly, or you could forget about
flying forever.  If you did either of these two things,
you would have no problem with flying--and no phobia
either.  The reason your problem persists is that you
have been unable to take either of these two paths to
happiness.  You have been unable to fly, and you also
have been unable comfortably to forget about flying.
From my point of view, then, your central problem with
flying is not the fear but the conflict.
If you think about it for a minute, you will
realize that many people are fearful of things, and
avoid these things, without feeling troubled about it.
They do not feel that they should "get over" their
avoidance.  Instead, they feel quite comfortable
continuing to avoid certain things--forever.  I'll give
you an example.  I have relatives who live on a small
farm in Upstate New York.  They fear going to Manhattan,
and they just won't go.  They avoid Manhattan just like
you might avoid airplanes.  However, they are not
troubled about this fear.  They feel quite comfortable
living the rest of their lives without ever going to
Manhattan.  Now, if their "fear of Manhattan" were to be
handled the way many psychologists treat fear of flying,
these relatives of mine would be labelled "phobic," and
"helped" to overcome their phobia.  They would learn all
the virtues of Manhattan (It probably has more cultural
and artistic events per square mile than anyplace in the
world); they would learn all the reasons why going to
Manhattan is perfectly safe (Manhattan has more police
per city block than any other city, and the odds of you
getting mugged are remote); and they would be given a
treatment program to help them decrease their fear.  My
relatives, though, would never participate in such a
program because, as you recall, they are not troubled
about avoiding Manhattan.  In other words, they only
hate Manhattan; they don't hate themselves for hating
Manhattan.
Are Flight Avoiders Victimized by Biased
Psychologists?
As I look over the treatments for fear of flying,
the ones you get in the psychologist's office and the
ones you read in self-help books, I find them all quite
similar in one important regard:  They all overlook the
conflict that is part of this phobia, and they all
advocate "battling the fear."  They all advocate
becoming relaxed enough to fly, and they never seem to
advocate becoming relaxed about avoiding flying.
Why are they so biased?  The answer may be that the
psychologists who create these treatments are
unwittingly reacting to the conflict in their patients.
The patients are angry at themselves for avoiding
flying.  The patients consider themselves weak, chicken,
inferior, flawed, miserable, unworthy, and, most of all,
irrational.  The therapists treating these patients are
subtly encouraged by them to come to the very same
conclusions:  that they are weak, chicken, inferior,
flawed, miserable, unworthy, and, most of all,
irrational.  The patients, then, in subtle ways, teach
their therapists how to think about them and their
problems.  The patients are angry at their own
fearfulness, so their therapists also learn to feel the
same anger.  Because of this--because of what their
patients teach them, therapists who treat fear of flying
learn to condemn the fear and overlook the conflict.
The patients envy those who, unlike them, are brave.
They want to become brave too.  Their therapists try to
deliver the goods.  What the therapists fail to notice
is that this wish to be brave may be no less neurotic
than the wish to avoid airplanes.  It may even be worse.
I don't believe that advocating flying and
"battling the fear" is the right treatment for all
flight avoidant patients.  While I do not blame
therapists for trying to deliver the goods, I do blame
them for failing to see that these patients are in
conflict about their problem, and I blame them for
failing to see how they are siding with their patients'
self-hate.  The patient blames himself for being weak;
the therapist, very simplistically, tries to give the
patient the courage that he thinks the patient lacks.
I think therapists should treat these patients in a
more neutral way.  I think therapists should realize
that there are two solutions to this "phobia," not one.
Therapists should think not only of solving the fear or
phobia of flying, but also of solving the compulsion
that makes these fearful people want to force themselves
to fly.  Isn't it odd, after all, that people should try
so hard to do something they hate?  Shouldn't these
people be rescued from the compulsion as well as the
fear?
Actually, very few of the people who are afraid of
flying seek treatment for it.  I read in today's
newspaper that a unique San Francisco Bay Area program,
dedicated to treating fear of flying, is currently
underway with 13 participants.  Only 13 out of the
millions of people who live here, and of the tens of
thousands of those who fear flying, is a very small
turnout.  Considering the high level of professionalism
and the fair fee charged for this program, I consider it
remarkable that only 13 fearful people are
participating.
I think I know why this number is so low.  People
who are in conflict over their fear of flying do not
wholeheartedly want treatment.  Only part of them wants
treatment.  The other part of them really wants to feel
free to avoid flying forever.  Since this conflict takes
place at an unconscious level--out of the person's
awareness, I imagine that the flight avoider has the
following train of thought about attending a fearful
flyers program, "I really should sign up for that, but
it's at an inconvenient time, in an inconvenient place,
and I just can't afford it, and I'll do it real soon,
but not now, and besides, I have an appointment to get a
manicure."  Because so many flight fearful people have
inner conflict about overcoming their fear, few attend
these treatment programs.  The part of the patient that
does not want to overcome the fear ensures that the
patient does not join the program.  Obviously, a program
is needed that is more neutral, acknowledges the
conflict over flying, and sets out to provide help
rather than only to get the person to fly.
Should I Help You Fit In?
  So many people have such a compelling need to
"fit-in" and to "be normal" that this need can be
thought of as a disease in itself.  Is fitting-in good,
or is the feeling of having to fit-in a problem in
itself?  Is the feeling of having to fit-in the driving
force behind the compulsion to force yourself to fly
even though you hate it?  Perhaps developing a sense of
autonomy and independence is far more important than
simply fitting-in.
Many people who seek help for fear of flying do so
largely because they feel humiliated about not flying.
They feel abnormal, and they hate feeling abnormal.
This is what gives them the compulsion to try to fit in-
-by flying, "like normal people do."  They haven't
really sat down, meditated, and chosen to work on
overcoming their fear of flying.  Instead, they have had
a knee-jerk reaction to the sense of humiliation and
failure that goes along with avoiding flying.  They feel
ashamed about being "abnormal," so they feel they must
do everything possible to become normal.  They picture
people laughing at them because they have a phobia, so
they take steps to overcome the phobia.  If fearing
flying is abnormal, then they feel they must learn not
to fear flying.
The ironic thing is that, whether they fly or not,
you can still say such people are reacting to a phobia.
We know they have a phobia of flying, but, they might
also have a phobia of social embarrassment.  If they
fly, they feel scared.  If they don't fly, they feel
humiliated.  Either way they lose, and either way they
are doing something for the wrong reasons.  The fear of
social humiliation is a very powerful feeling.  It is so
powerful, in fact, that it motivated the Kamikazes to
take off on suicide missions.  The only thing stopping
Kamikazes from refusing was the fear of social
ostracism.  They chose to die rather than live in shame.
Am I going too far if I say that Kamikazes were killed,
ultimately, by a phobia of social humiliation?
Some of the greatest people in history--Socrates,
Galileo, Van Gogh, Freud, and Einstein, just to name a
few--were considered very unusual by their
contemporaries.  They did not fit in.  The fact that
these people followed their own hearts and lived their
lives their own way is what allowed them to achieve
their greatness.  Psychologists often strive to help
their patients live according to their own paths.  That
is why psychologists are unpopular in some quarters.
They will endorse the idea of quitting a dead end job,
or leaving a hopeless marriage, despite the fact that
others may not view such actions as the "right" things
to do.
Because I favor the individual's needs, instead of
favoring that which happens to be considered "normal," I
am always dubious when someone comes to me to work on
fear of flying.  I wonder whether they have really
arrived at a decision about the flying phobia, or
whether they are simply reacting to the other phobia
they have, the fear of social humiliation about avoiding
flying.
One example of someone who does not seem to be
driven by this fear of humiliation is the football
commentator, John Madden.  He has let all the world know
that he fears flying, and, rather than torment himself
about it, he has arranged his life so that he can avoid
it.  He has even gone so far as to stage elaborate
contests to select his own personal Greyhound Bus
driver.  He has demonstrated, to me at least, that he is
not ashamed to be afraid of flying.  If he walked in the
door to my office and asked me to help him with flight
fear, I would not be suspicious about his motives.
Considering how open and shame-free he has been about
his fear, I strongly doubt that he would seek treatment
merely to fit in (and, of course, if he is comfortable
the way he is, he has absolutely no need for treatment).
Only if you feel completely free to avoid flying can you
ever be in a position to make a free choice to overcome
your fear of flying.
I have tried to compensate for people's tendency to
seek treatment merely to fit in.  I treat their fear of
social humiliation at the same time that I treat their
phobia.  If you fear flying, you need treatment.
However, if you fear not-flying, because it could be
socially embarrassing, you need treatment for that too.
I am always on the lookout for the fear of social
embarrassment in my patients.  I ask myself, "Who will
scorn this person if he or she refuses to fly?"  Is it
the boss, the spouse, friends or co-workers?  Or, is it
the person himself or herself?  Some people scorn
themselves more than anyone else ever would.  Making
peace with this tendency to scorn yourself is crucial
for becoming a free and independent person.  Only free
and independent people can make free choices.  Choosing
to overcome your fear of flying will only be successful
if the choice is made freely.  If, on the other hand, it
is something you do only to avoid someone's scorn, your
fear of flying will never get better--and maybe there is
no need for it to.


Chapter Three:  The Airline Industry, Product
Acceptance, Psychologists, and the Status Quo

Now it is time to look at the bigger picture.  You
might be reading this because you believe you need to
overcome your fear of flying.   But is overcoming flight
fear the goal you should have?  Is overcoming your fear
necessary?  Is fear of flying really a problem for you?
For whom is it a problem?  This chapter looks at the
outside pressures that are trying to convince you that
you have a problem because you do not like to fly.
When a consumer feels the need to buy the product
that a certain company or industry sells, that need is
called "product acceptance."  Most of us accept the
necessity of consuming paper towels, for example,
although some people consider them wasteful and prefer
using rags.  Those who insist on using rags do not
"accept" the product of the paper towel industry.  Paper
towels, though, have a rather high degree of product
acceptance, as most Americans seem to buy them.
In contrast, though, millions of Americans do not
"accept" the product of the air travel industry.  These
Americans do not fly and will not fly.  How can we
decide whether this is simply a lack of product
acceptance, or whether these people have a phobia?  Are
these people "sick," or do they simply not consume the
product sold by a certain industry?  Should they be
compared to people who are mentally ill?  Or, should
they be compared, for example, to shoppers who choose
not to buy those colored disinfectant cakes you can drop
into your toilet tank?
One group who has a motive to define your non-
flying as a sickness is the air travel industry.  This
includes airline companies, airplane manufacturers,
hotels, car rental agencies, and, in short, everyone who
makes a profit when you travel by air.  The Boeing
Commercial Aircraft Company -- the company that makes
the 737, 747, 757, and 767 -- has organized seminars at
which experts on flight fear have proposed solutions to
the problem.  Boeing wants Americans to overcome their
fear of flying, so they can buy more tickets and take
more trips.  This would, in turn, cause the airlines to
buy more Boeing airplanes.  Boeing and other aviation
businesses benefit when your refusal to purchase their
product is labeled a "phobia."  If your refusal to fly
is labeled a phobia, then anyone who fails to buy the
air travel industry's product is "sick."  Calling non-
consumers "sick" or "phobic" is an ideal marketing
strategy.  The air travel industry  would love the
slogan, "Only the mentally ill fail to use our product!"
Judging by the way psychologists are so quick to try to
quash fear of flying, they seem to have completely
accepted this slogan.
How do we know, though, that non-flyers are
"mentally ill"  or "phobic?"  Is it in the nature of
normal human beings to be able to fly?  Should we also
say that people who don't drink Pepsi have a phobia of
that?  Is it a property of normal human beings to enjoy
Pepsi?   Is it abnormal to prefer Coke, and is it
totally insane to avoid all cola drinks?
The airlines seem to have succeeded in their
efforts to have flying labeled normal and not flying
labeled abnormal, but why do psychologists do the
bidding of the air travel industry, jump on the
bandwagon, and label you phobic?  The answer is that
psychologists tend to endorse the majority viewpoint on
what is normal.  I would not the first to observe that
psychologists are often the champions of the status quo.
In other words, whatever the majority of people do is
what many psychologists think you ought to do.  The
majority is considered normal; the minority is not.
What this means is that psychologists label you phobic
if you refuse to fly, just because the majority flies.
If flying is the commonplace thing to do, then you must
do it too if you want psychologists to consider you
normal.
On the other hand, you can freely avoid things that
few people do, and psychologists will not call you
phobic.  If, for example, you avoid skydiving,
motorcycle riding, or big game hunting, I doubt you will
find many psychologists who will label you a phobic
person.  These pastimes are less common, so
psychologists do not expect you to participate.  What
does this all mean?  It means that a psychologist might
label many people phobic when the right label should be
"eccentric", "uncommon," or "non-conformist."  Having a
flying phobia might really mean nothing more than this:
You are a less conventional person than the psychologist
who gave you the label.
This is the idea that I proposed in the
Introduction -- that there is sort of an unwitting
conspiracy to get you to fly.  The air travel industry
and many psychologists are working together to make you
feel bad about avoiding flying.  No wonder you feel so
ashamed of yourself when you take the bus, the train or
you drive.  That is how Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and
Hertz Car Rentals want you to feel.  They want everyone
to jump on the bandwagon and purchase the product that
supports their businesses.
If you think about it, there are many industries
that do their best to make you feel bad about rejecting
their product -- regardless of whether their product is
objectively good or bad for you.  The alcoholic beverage
industry is a good example.  They do not make a product
that is good for you.  Almost daily, we read in the
newspapers about the latest health benefit that non-
drinkers enjoy, and the latest health risk incurred by
drinkers.  Despite this, the alcoholic beverage industry
does all it can to make you want to drink.  Why?
Because businesses are not public services.  The  goal
of any business is to survive.  That is part of the free
enterprise system.  Some people believe that industries
that are not good will die out because the consumer will
reject them.  Obviously, in the case of alcoholic
beverages and tobacco, just to name two obvious ones,
that has not happened.
Think of all the advertisements for alcoholic
beverages.  The drinker is always portrayed as
successful, beautiful, sociable -- in short, a "winner,"
while the abstainer just isn't pictured.  So, when you
are feeling like your life lacks something, some sort of
fun or excitement, you might subconsciously recall all
the alcohol advertisements you have read and think of
having a drink, or going to a bar.  In a similar
fashion, the beef producers do their best, in their
advertisements for meat, to make you hungry for their
product.  They show you beautiful steaks sizzling on the
barbecue.  You won't find alcohol manufacturers publicly
recognizing the drawbacks of drinking, such as the
numerous diseases that are linked to alcohol
consumption, and you won't find the meat industry
publicly recognizing the medical drawbacks of eating
lots of meat.
Industries want to grow and prosper.  They often
achieve this through advertising and public relations.
The airline industry, in their advertising, creates an
image of flying that is so pleasant as to be serene.
Airplanes are depicted nearly silently, but powerfully,
gliding among beautiful puffy clouds -- always in calm,
daytime skies.  Sometimes we see the passenger reclining
or dozing in the seat.  Singapore Airlines, in their
television advertisements, creates a scene of soft-focus
meditative bliss.  The beautiful "Singapore Girl"
attends to every need of the business traveler.  If
Singapore Airlines flight attendants have ever had to
wrestle a meal cart that is bucking like a bronco down
an aisle that is reliving the Great San Francisco
Earthquake, we will never know it from their propaganda.
American Airlines, which has recently taken to calling
itself "The On-Time Machine," depicts in their
television advertisements a very high level of
dedication among their employees, all working together
to get you there on time.  I have no doubt that their
employees are dedicated, but they are also human.  How
many of these impeccably uniformed employees are
thinking, not only of getting you there on time, but
also of their impending divorces, or their ongoing
disputes with management?  A man's hand is shown deftly
pushing the throttles forward, as the beautiful jet
begins its takeoff roll.  Impressive, but in real life
we know the pilot could have half his mind on his son's
latest conviction for drunk driving, or on the subpoena
he received from his ex-wife's lawyer this morning.  The
realities of life at American or Singapore Airlines do
not mean that flying is unsafe, but they do give greater
credibility to those who abhor flying--credibility they
would not have if everyone believed the commercials.
We never see, in airline advertisments, depictions
of turbulence, rain, or overstressed air crews really
sweating to earn their pay.  Although turbulence, rain,
and generally lousy flights are part of the reality of
flying, the airline industry does its best to make
everyone forget about these things.  The psychological
term for this is "denial."  The airline industry denies
everything negative about flying.  This makes people who
fear flying feel even worse.  These people already fear
flying, but, after the airlines' advertising puts across
their message of denial, worried flyers not only feel
worried, but crazy as well.  How can they be so out of
touch, they wonder, as to fear something that is
completely pleasant and beautiful?  I have seen this
many times in my office practice.  Some flight fearful
people have been so effectively "brainwashed" by the
airline industry that they have no awareness of how
lousy an experience flying can be.  The outcome of this
is that they just blame themselves.  They consider
themselves not only chicken, but also nuts -- overly
sensitive, frail, afraid of life, and a host of other
self-condemnatory terms.
Am I saying that the airlines are selling a bad
product?  Not at all.  They are selling a good product,
but they are guilty, like most industries, of making
their product appear somewhat better than it really is.
They are making the hapless fearful passenger feel
confused about whether there is any reason to dislike
flying, and, they are getting psychologists in on the
scam.  Psychologists, acting for all the world as if
they are literally on the payroll of Boeing, will
blithely label you a "phobic" if you get nervous about
flying.  They do this because most people fly, not
because someone has handed them a blueprint for a human
being which proves that it is "normal" to fly.
The bottom line is that you must decide for
yourself.  Take everything the airlines say with a grain
of salt, and treat psychologists as if they are the paid
agents of the airlines.  Your choice to walk away from
airplanes may be a valid one for you, and let no one
tell you otherwise.
Here is something to think about.  Nearly everyone
who writes uses an electric typewriter--at minimum, and
many writers today use computers.  The other day, I
happened to pick up a magazine, and I read the obituary
of the American writer Mary McCarthy, who died in 1989.
I learned quite a bit about this fine woman of letters,
including that she always used a manual typewriter.  She
had a quirk about modern conveniences:  She just did not
like them.  Obviously, she is an example of someone who
felt free to have her quirks.  I started to wonder how
much of her creative potential might have been lost if
she had devoted herself to overcoming her quirk about
modern stuff.  How many hours might she have spent with
a psychologist if she had felt conflicted about her
abhorrence of things electric?  Fortunately, she just
stuck to her manual typewriter and didn't waste her time
worrying about it.  How many of those who fear flying
would be better off to follow suit -- just forget about
flying and get on with what matters to you in life?
Think about Mary McCarthy as you read the rest of this
book.



Chapter Four:  Why the Pilot is Less Afraid than
You--A Psychological Theory of Fear and Relaxation While
Flying

The best explanation for the environmental causes
of fear or anxiety that I have seen comes from the noted
research psychologist, Professor Albert Mehrabian of
UCLA.  He has found that fear can be caused by an
environmental "overload."  Overloads are caused by
uncertainty.  When there is uncertainty in an
environment, we become emotionally aroused or excited.
Many of us prefer a small degree of environmental
"load," such as the soft noise of a wind chime or the
singing of birds.  Many teenagers, though, prefer the
much higher load of a heavy metal rock band, along with
flashing lights and garish attire.  Regardless of the
degree of environmental load we generally prefer, if the
environmental load becomes too high for us--too much
uncertainty--we become nervous.  If it gets extreme, we
become fearful.  An example of an extremely uncertain,
or "loaded," environment would be the scene of a bank
robbery.  There might be much loud shouting of fierce
words, possibly a few deafening gunshots which would
seem even louder than usual in such a confined space,
and you would not know what the robber is going to do
next or how it would affect you.  You would be faced
with the ultimate in uncertainty--not knowing whether
you will live or die.  You would inevitably become
fearful.
Professor Mehrabian observes that the environment
is just one component of the arousal process.  Another
is the person's inherent arousability.  Some people are
much more sensitive to environmental loads than others.
Those who are not particularly sensitive to
environmental uncertainty are called "screeners" by
Professor Mehrabian, because they screen out what could
be an overload for others.  Non-screeners cannot screen
out overloads.  When non-screeners are in an uncertain
environment, they can become aroused and, ultimately,
afraid.  If you are a test pilot, skydiver, or
motorcycle police officer, or, if you prefer
unstructured, experimental or free-jazz, rather than
"easy listening" music, chances are that you are a
screener.  If, on the other hand, you are afraid to fly,
chances are you are a non-screener.
Does this mean that non-screeners will always be
fearful in all situations?  No!  Something can be done
to lower the environmental load or uncertainty:  The
person can become so familiar with a particular
environment that the environment no longer holds
uncertainty.  Once that occurs, the environment no
longer arouses fear.
Recall the first time you ever drove a car.  You
were aroused, almost certainly nervous, and possibly
afraid.  You were in a highly loaded environment; there
was much uncertainty.  Anything, it seemed, could
happen.  You felt that you could run the car off the
road, or into another car.  You could stall the engine
or get honked at.  Contrast how you felt then with how
you feel now when you drive.  Driving now has become
familiar and unthreatening.  You now have such
familiarity with the driving situation that the
environmental load hardly affects you.  Although it is
still possible for you to hit another car, you have
shown yourself that this is not a likely occurrence.
Now, in the same environment, you drink coffee, tune the
radio, check your haircut in the mirror, have involved
discussions with passengers, and do all sorts of other
activities.  The environment hasn't changed; you have.
Based on Professor Mehrabian's theory, you ought to
be able to achieve a similar degree of comfort in the
flying environment.  If you could somehow acquire the
same high degree of familiarity with the flying
environment, you wouldn't fear it either.
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that looks
good on paper, but is difficult to implement in the real
world.  The trick, of course, is how do you get familiar
with an environment that frightens you so much, you
never want to get near it.  The main reason it is harder
to get familiar with the flying environment than the
driving environment is this:  It is simply impractical
to ease into it gradually enough.  If you were afraid of
driving, I could start you off with a drive that lasted
all of two seconds, and covered one foot of terrain.  In
contrast, even the shortest flight lasts too long, and
goes too far, for many fearful people.  Even circling
the airport and landing provides an unendurable
environmental load for many people.   Although it isn't
easy to do, possible solutions to the problem of
lowering the environmental load in the flying
environment are presented later in the book when we talk
about treatment.
The Cattle and the Cowpunchers
Professor Mehrabian uses another concept which has
a direct bearing on the unpleasantness many of us
associate with flying:  environmental dominance.  He
notes that some environments make us feel dominant.  For
example, when we are dining in a fancy rooftop
restaurant, looking down at the city below, and being
waited-on by deferential waiters, we feel dominant.
Other environments make us feel submissive, and the
environment of the airline passenger is one of these.
In fact, the environment of cattle being herded from
feed-lot to railroad cars is hardly more submissive than
that of passengers being herded from the airport
boarding lounge to the airplane passenger cabin.  Like
submissive cattle, the airline passengers leave the
boarding lounge on command.  The cowboy opens the gates
for the cattle just like the passenger agent announces
that "passengers may now board."  Actually, passengers
must now board, or they will miss their flight.  Just as
cattle are herded through a narrow chute into the cattle
car, airline passengers submissively follow one another
through the narrow boarding ramp.  Finally, just as
cattle are packed into the cattle car so as to get the
most beef possible onto the costly train, so are airline
passengers shoved into their closely spaced seats.  In
fact, seat spacing, except in first class, is carefully
calculated to get the most paying passengers into the
plane, allowing them just enough room so their knees
will fit.  The rows of seats would be even closer
together except that the different airline companies
complete with each other to offer you some degree of
comfort.  If they would all agree to forget about
comfort, they could put even more seats in each plane,
and you would sit there cramped and in pain.  Unlike
cattle, we at least get to choose our destinations, but
we share with them the submissive predicament of being
unable to see in front of us as we travel, being forced
to look sideways if we look at all.  Being unable to see
where you are going is the very height of
submissiveness.
Once you are crammed into this submissive
environment, you feel dominated because you are
dominated.  You may not think of it in these terms, but
you know that you dislike it.  Every change in speed,
bank-angle, climb or descent is a surprise for you.  The
flight crew doesn't ask your opinion about how the
flight should go, you aren't even informed of most of
what takes place.  Even if they did inform you, you
would not understand what you were being told because
the airlines have never educated the public about the
procedures of flying.  You submit like cattle, with no
more say-so than a prize bull has over his destiny.
Just for fun, let us consider whether the pilot and
copilot are in a submissive or dominant environment.  If
you think about it, you'll quickly see that they are in
a very dominant environment.  They are more like the
cowpunchers who herd the cattle.  You wait in the
boarding lounge until you are told to board, but they
stroll on board when they see fit.  You are herded
straight through the boarding ramp while they stroll
around the plane, stopping here and there to look things
over.  They know all about the airplane they are
boarding.  They have touched and prodded it.  They are
its masters.  What do you think would happen if you
asked to stroll around the parked airliner or examine
the operating manual?
Once on board, the flight crew settle into large,
sheepskin covered easy chairs, electrically adjustable
in a variety of different directions.  In a classically
dominant environment, they have a great forward view,
full temperature and airflow controls (and much more
fresh air to breathe than you have), the ability to chat
with people outside the plane, and the ability to
control all the airplane does.  Just to complete their
absolute dominance, they have a full crew of flight
attendants who will bring them food and coffee anytime
they want.  That is the difference between dominance and
submission--the cowboys and the cattle.  Now you can
understand one reason that pilots probably enjoy the
flight much more than you do.  Feeling dominant is
preferable to feeling submissive.  After a hard day on
the range, the cowboy probably eats beef for dinner.
Get the picture?
So here you are:  a non-screener in a high arousal
environment that makes you feel submissive.  All the
psychological ingredients for the creation of misery are
built right into the situation of the airline passenger.
The only thing that should surprise us is that some
people say they like flying.
How Can You Lower Your Arousal When Flying?
Flying arouses anxiety or fear because it is an
environment that is too highly loaded.  We cannot change
the actual environment, but we can lower the load by
making the environment so familiar that it no longer
holds uncertainty.  If the environmental load is
decreased, so is the arousal level.
Let's take a simple example to demonstrate how this
might work.  This is a theoretical example, and, as I
mentioned above, it is not very easy to accomplish in
the real world, with people who are strongly afraid of
flying.  However, it is still worth thinking about, and
it works quite well with people whose level of fear is
not terribly high to begin with.
Let's say you are taking your very first airplane
ride when the airplane suddenly turns.  Since you have
never been in a turning airplane before, there is
suddenly a great deal of uncertainty.  You have no idea
whether all this movement is a routine part of flying or
whether you are about to crash.  The environmental load
becomes extremely high.  It gradually lowers as you
observe that the airplane is still flying, rather than
plummeting.  Next, let's move ahead in time to your one
hundredth flight.  This time, when the airplane turns,
you would recognize the visual and tactile sensations
and quickly interpret them to be signs of a routine
turn.  The environment has, by now, become far less
uncertain.  The turn might still make you nervous, but
not nearly as nervous as before.  If we next move to
your thousandth flight, you would not only have become
quite familiar with turns, but you might even have
anticipated this one.  You might have learned, by now,
that the airplane always makes a turn north about a
minute or so after taking off from your home airport.
The environmental uncertainty has now vastly decreased
from what you experienced during your first flight.
Experience, understanding, and familiarity all
serve to decrease environmental uncertainty, and,
therefore, fear.  This is why I expect you to benefit
from my discussion later of how flying works.  That
discussion is intended to lower the uncertainty in your
flying environment.  If you knew enough about it, you
might even come to find flying boring and get wrapped up
in the in-flight movie.  Wouldn't that be nice?
Remember though, this whole procedure only works
under certain circumstances--when people want it to, and
when their level of fear is not terribly high.  Some
people may simply have a degree of fear that is too high
to allow them to take that first flight.  Such people
may have to resort to the use of tranquilizers to make
them function temporarily more like screeners.  This is
discussed later when we talk about treatment.  Other
people really would prefer not to fly, and there is
nothing wrong with that.  Once people recognize that
they are fully entitled not to fly, and not to make
themselves try to fly, they can free themselves from
this, or any other, environment that is too unpleasant
for them.  For many, that is the best cure of all.



Chapter Five:  Anatomy of Flight Fear

Many people find it helpful to know that others
share their problems.  One good thing about flight fear
is that sufferers have plenty of company--probably more
than 25 million Americans.  A researcher named Bob Dean
of the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company, manufacturer
of most of the world's passenger jets, has estimated
that every 200-passenger airplane has 48 passengers who
are feeling some degree of nervousness or fear about
flying.  I have found that there are several types of
flight fear.  Different people fear different things
about flying, and they experience their fears in
different ways.  This chapter will list some of these
ways.  Of course, the distinctions I have created
between the various "types" of people who fear flying
are artificial.  In actuality, most people who are
fearful have several different types of the fears listed
below.
The Claustrophobic
A person with claustrophobia can't stand being shut
into a confined space.  I have seen claustrophobic
patients who have had such an intense reaction, even to
being in the confines of the boarding ramp, that they
have never gotten on the plane.  Once on the plane, such
people become very anxious about being locked into the
cabin.  When the flight attendant closes the door,
abject terror can begin.  These people do not worry
about airplane crashes.  In fact, some of them, in their
desperation, would welcome a crash, for a crash would
mean the end of their torture.  For people with
claustrophobia, the anxiety reaction can be intense,
including the feeling of sheer panic, sweating,
weakness, feeling faint and vomiting.
For such people, there has been one encouraging
change in commercial aviation.  This was the
introduction of jumbo jets.  Now it is possible to fly
without feeling that you are crammed into a giant cigar
tube.  The interiors of the larger planes of today, the
747, 757, 767, DC-10, Airbus and L-1011, seem more like
movie theaters, or auditoriums, than like airplanes.
Some claustrophobic people can comfortably fly in
today's airplanes, as long as they ensure they will be
traveling on a "jumbo."
The Victim of Superstition
Many people who fly are superstitious.  Such people
would avoid Row 13 on Flight 13, not to mention seat D
(for death), F (for fear), and G (because their mother-
in-laws' name is Gertrude).  For such people, flying on
Friday the Thirteenth is completely out of the question.
Superstitions give us a sense of being in control of
situations where we have no control.  Instead of facing
the frightening reality of having no control over
whether your flight will crash or not, one hopes to feel
more secure by thinking that the plane will not crash
because, for example,  the flight number is a lucky one.
It is interesting that the airline industry has
chosen to cater to the superstitions of such people.
Just as many hotels do not have a thirteenth
floorbecause many guests would refuse to take rooms
there, remarkably few airlines have a "Flight 13."  In
fact, some airlines have hired consulting firms to
eliminate potential flight numbers that passengers might
find offensive.  Such offending numbers would include
multiples of 13, 11, and any other numbers which could
provoke worry in superstitious people.  It has been
reported that Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologer to
select favorable days on which the president would fly.
There is no limit to properties that can be associated
with good luck and bad luck.  Color, number, or
whatever.  For a time, some people believed that the
Lockheed L-1011 was haunted by a friendly ghost, making
it the safest airplane in the world.  The story of this
ghost, "The Ghost of Flight 401" became a book and a TV
movie.
Superstitious people will create their own silly
logic when they need reassurance.  For example, if your
father's name is Douglas, you might feel safer on an MD-
80, which is manufactured by the McDonnell-Douglas
Corporation.  Not all superstitions, though, appear to
be as silly as they really are.  Some of them almost
seem reasonable, but they are not.  For example, if a
particular airline has a crash, let's say USAir, one
group of superstitious passengers will assiduously avoid
USAir for a while, thinking that by doing so they are
protecting themselves.  They don't seem to realize that
USAir flew several hundred million perfectly safe miles
before the crash and will continue to do so after the
crash.  I can't recall a time when two major crashes in
a row involved the same airline or type of airplane.
Nevertheless, superstitious passengers gain a great
sense of control and security by telling themselves that
they are affecting their destinies by making a series of
meaningless choices of airline, airplane, seat, flight
or day of the month to travel, or by carrying a rabbit's
foot (which, obviously, had not proven lucky for the
rabbit who owned it).  Ironically, no matter how the
passenger tries to gain superstitious control, the FAA
has ways of ruining things.  Your flight may still be
assigned to Runway 13, with an initial altitude of
13,000 feet.
The Structural Engineer
The sort of person I call "the structural engineer"
is a very commonplace sufferer of fear of flying.  This
person is nervous about flying, and applies this
nervousness to worry about the structural integrity of
the airplane itself.  This person is carefully watching-
-you might even say, vigilant--for any signs that the
airplane is about to fall apart.  This is the person who
counts rivets, or the person looking for cracks on the
wings or leaking fluid under the wings.  Flying is no
piece of cake for this sort of person, but people like
this rarely experience sheer panic and terror.  Instead,
they are constantly fretting about a crash and analyzing
what might bring it about.  They do not take their minds
off this topic during the entire flight, and they often
appear to be very tense.  Consequently, you will never
see such people reading the magazines or watching the
movie.  To do so would distract them from their primary
task of worrying about the airplane, and they are simply
too preoccupied to be distracted.  They often have the
superstitious belief that, if they do take their minds
off the airplane, that will somehow cause it to crash.
The Pilot's Helper
The "pilot's helper," like the "structural
engineer" is a worrier, not a panicker.  This person,
rather than focusing on the impending failure of the
airplane, focuses on what the airplane is doing.  The
pilot's helper watches every turn, climb and descent,
always trying to figure out what is going wrong.  The
pilot's helper has a very active imagination, and uses
it to feed his or her fear.  Such a person imagines that
the last turn was made to avoid a near collision with a
military jet, and the next climb will be done to avoid a
near collision with a mountain.
Some flights give pilot's helpers more to worry
about than others.  For example, yesterday I was on a
Southwest Airlines flight from Burbank to Oakland.
During the first 30 minutes of the flight the flight
crew kept tampering with the power settings of the
engines.  First, I heard the engines running at one
power setting.  Then they would run slower for a while,
and then they would run faster again.  At irregular
intervals, the airplane would seem to slow, only to
speed up again shortly.  If I were a worried pilot's
helper, I would have started speculating about engine
problems.  Maybe I would have imagined that some engine
defect was causing the pilot to have difficulty getting
the engine to run at one consistent speed.  I had heard
of runaway jet engines that keep gaining power until
they blow themselves up.  Was this going to be one of
those?  Alternatively, I could have thought about engine
fires, engine failures, and, the old standby, crashes.
This train of though would have fed my ever growing
anxiety.  In fact, the engine changes were completely
benign--probably the result of numerous speed and climb
restrictions from Air Traffic Control because of crowded
airspace, yet benign explanations are the last
possibilities that the Pilot's Helper considers.
Fortunately, on yesterday's flight, I was not
inclined to worry, although it is very easy to see how
one might.  In fact, in defense of all those who are
pilot's helpers, I must say that I find it harder to
understand someone who is oblivious to his or her
environment than someone who worries about it.  I was
actually somewhat surprised to find that none of the
other passengers who were visible to me seemed to take
any notice of the changes in engine thrust.  I guess
Southwest Airlines had done an effective job of
distracting passengers from engine sounds and such by
getting them to focus instead on the beautiful flight
attendants (all blonds, all with tousled hair), the
tasty salted peanuts, and the fact that the airplane was
painted to look like Shamu, the killer whale.
 Like the structural engineer, the pilot's helper
focuses his or her anxiety on the outside.  Instead of
thinking "I feel nervous" and leaving it at that, this
person transforms the experience of nervousness into
concerns about the outside world, in this case, the
airplane.  Many people who fear flying are both
structural engineers and pilot's helpers.  As
passengers, they are preoccupied and tense, but they are
capable of flying and often do.
The Victim of Embarassment
Victims of embarrassment do not really believe the
plane will crash.  Instead they believe that they will
have a near or complete nervous breakdown in flight,
caused by their fears, and that they will disgrace and
humiliate themselves in front of all the other
passengers.  These people are remarkably tense in
flight, and just about anything out of the ordinary can
set them off.  One patient of mine was barely hanging on
to his sanity, gripping the armrests tightly, as his
flight from Asia bounced through some moderate
turbulence.  At one point, a fellow passenger called out
"Ride 'em, cowboy!"  This was the last straw for my
patient, and he broke down crying, right there in his
seat.  For some reason, the fact that the other
passenger expressed his feeling of anxiety at just that
moment, put my patient over the edge.  When it was all
over, my patient was very upset--not because of having
flown through such annoying turbulence, and not because
of having felt scared, but for having (in his eyes) made
a fool of himself in public.
Many people, who are "victims of embarassment,"
spend their time in flight picturing themselves being
carted down the aisle in a straightjacket by burley
members of the flight crew, accompanied by smug
stewardesses and crying hysterically, looking to all the
world like the most deranged of "mental patients," while
the rest of the passengers laugh and point with a
mixture of delight and horror at the amusing spectacle.
The classic Twilight Zone  television episode, remade as
part of the Twilight Zone movie, called "Terror at
20,000 Feet,"  depicts a character, who is, in fact, a
mental patient, making just such a fool of himself in
flight.
Vertigo
Some people have a condition that can be thought of
as a sort of "emotional vertigo."  Actual vertigo is a
condition of spatial disorientation, which means that
you lose track of which way is up and which way is down.
It can be caused by many things.  One type, called
flicker-vertigo, can be caused by the flashing of the
airplane's strobe lights.  The lights bouncing off of
fog or nearby clouds can disorient the pilot.  To
prevent flicker-vertigo, the pilot always turns the
strobes off when flying in conditions which cause the
flashing light to reflect into the cockpit.  Vertigo can
also be caused by various turns, climbs and descents
while flying in clouds or at night, when you can't tell
up from down by looking out the window.  To prevent
vertigo, the cockpit crew keeps their eyes on the
instruments, especially the attitude indicator or
"artificial horizon."  This lets them "see" up from down
even when they can't do so by looking out the window.
In fact, to prevent confusion, the pilot who is at the
controls it not allowed to look out the window when
flying by instruments.
"Emotional vertigo" is the name I give to the
condition of people who have a strong fear reaction to
the movements of the airplane.  These people may not
really lose track of which way is up.  Instead, they
react with sudden fear to just about every movement of
the airplane.  They may not even be able to explain why
they feel fearful.  They just know it feels bad to them
when the airplane moves.  Since airplanes always move in
a variety of directions on every flight, these people
are bound to feel scared on every flight.  You can often
spot people with "emotional vertigo" in the cabin.  When
the plane turns, they will look around anxiously to see
whether other passengers are also panicking.  They may
seem to get some reassurance from the recognition that
their fellow passengers are not equally frightened.
The Denier
There are plenty of "deniers" on every flight.
These are people who are nervous about flying, but who
manage to keep their nervousness at bay by focusing
their attention elsewhere.  They purposefully ignore
what is going on around them, so they don't notice that
they are in an airplane or flying.  I am definitely not
knocking these people.  They have a coping ability that
works for them, and they should keep it up.  What is
unfortunate is that I don't know how to teach someone
how to be a denier if they haven't come to it naturally.
The clue that your fellow passenger is a denier is that
this person will go to almost ridiculous lengths not to
be exposed to information that would reveal that flying
is taking place.  For example, these people often close
the shades on their windows as soon as they are seated,
thereby making it impossible for them to even see that
they are at an airport.  Then they become engrossed in a
magazine and don't ever look up, not even for the safety
announcements by the flight attendants.  If they were to
hear the safety announcements, that might suggest to
them that they are somewhere other than the reading room
of the local library, where they are pretending to be.
These people are so busy denying the fact that they are
airborne that they literally do not look up and take
their bearings until they are ready to leave the plane.
Their strategy may sound silly, or exaggerated, but, for
many, it works.
The Drinker
If you have done much flying, you will have noticed
that some passengers, often businessmen, become
obnoxiously drunk while in flight.  Perhaps some of
these men become obnoxiously drunk whenever alcohol is
served, but I have no doubt that many of them drink
particularly heavily on airplanes to combat their fear
of flying.  These people pour as much alcohol on their
anxiety as they can, trying desperately to quiet the
feeling of fear.  Often, they miscalculate and put
themselves in a state of semi-frightened intoxication.
In this state, they might try to convince themselves
they are unafraid by demonstrating their macho bravado.
Female flight attendants dread such passengers,
especially when they are in groups (more like wolf
packs).  Such men may go to any lengths to show one
another that they are completely unafraid.  This might
include pawing or grabbing the flight attendants.
Actually, they are whistling in the dark, and their
exaggerated flirtatiousness is only done in the hope of
getting their minds off of their fear of flying.
People With More Serious Psychiatric Problems
Not all people who are fearful about flying have
problems with flying alone.  There are a variety of
psychiatric conditions that cause people to feel
nervous, or panicky, about flying.  For example, there
is agoraphobia.  People with this condition can become
very anxious just to leave home, and public places can
be extremely frightening, especially when escape might
be difficult.  Such people might have serious problems
with airports, not to mention airplanes themselves.
Often people with these problems are treated with
medication, and, if their condition is under medical
control, flying becomes possible.  Without treatment,
such people may have great difficulty flying.
Similarly, people who suffer from random panic attacks
might be in for trouble while flying.  These people do
not have a specific problem with flying.  However, they
might become panicky, without warning, under any
circumstance.  For such people, flying can be a more
complicated problem because, once the panic-attack
begins, the entire episode would necessarily take place
in public.
Entire books have been written about the various
psychiatric conditions that cause anxiety, so I will not
say more about it here.  Suffice it to say that some
people who have trouble with flying have just as much
trouble without flying.  This book does not really focus
on such people.  It focuses instead on those who do
fairly well in life, but who run into big difficulties
when they try to fly.
The Subjective and the Objective
Perhaps you have recognized yourself somewhere on
this list of fearful flyers.  You may get some comfort
from knowing that you are not alone, and that others
share your particular style of fear.  An important thing
to remember about fear is that it is something that
happens inside of you.  People do a mental trick when
they move the fear to the outside.  They say, "The plane
will crash," when they really mean to say, "I feel
scared."  You are ahead of the game if you can recognize
that the emotional experience of fear is often separate
from anything that is really going on outside you.  No
matter how scared you are, it has no bearing on the
performance of the airplane.  Fear is a purely
subjective experience.
I realize this is easy for me to say, since I am
not presently on an airplane that I am sure is about to
crash.  Sometimes, though, it helps to know that your
thinking might be unreasonable, even if you can't stop
yourself from more unreasonable thinking.  As I write
these words, near the summit of the Santa Cruz
Mountains, a half-dozen large jets are slowly descending
through light rain and fog between my home and San
Francisco International Airport, forty miles to the
north.  Several dozen passengers on these planes are
thinking about crashes, yet all of these planes will
land safely and uneventfully.  The passengers' fear was
only a subjective experience.



Chapter Six;:  Learning About Yourself

Now let's get down to treatment.  Treatment of fear
of flying, or fear of not-flying, is very easy.  All you
have to do is do it.  This takes some determination --
not because doing it is hard, or scary, but just because
it takes an effort to carry out a plan like this.  You
have to follow through, and people often don't.  Why
not?  Inertia -- people tend to stay the same.  One
thing psychologists will tell you -- unanimously -- is
that people find it easiest to stay the same.  The
hardest thing in the world is to change.  If you fear
flying, the easiest thing is to remain fearful.  The
fear will probably not go away by itself.  Similarly, if
you don't feel free to avoid flying, chances are that
won't improve by itself either.  To get results, you
have to make an effort.  Change is hard, and people tend
to resist it.  I have been amazed, when I have given
patients homework to do, that they will sometimes come
in to see me the following week without having done the
homework.  They show up empty-handed, despite the fact
that they are paying me over a hundred dollars a visit
to help them.  I guess they would rather throw away the
money than risk changing the way they are.  That is what
I mean about people resisting change.  If you want to
change, you have to make the effort.  But remember, all
I am asking is effort.  If treatment is done correctly,
it will not be "sink or swim," and you will never get
scared.
Treatment has several phases.  They are:
Treating the part of you that doesn't want
treatment,
Getting you to relax, and
Getting you to relax about flying (or about
not-flying).
I can imagine how this reads.  Looks good on paper,
but will it fly? (Pun, sorry.)  We'll see.
Exercise One:  Treating the Part of You That
Doesn't Want Treatment
This is an exercise to help you get more in touch
with your feelings.  Sounds like a therapy clichÄ, and
it is, but the fact is you need to get in touch with
your feelings.  What does that mean?  You need to talk
to yourself about the whole idea of flying or not
flying, so you can get a better idea of what you want to
do about it.  Do you want never again to hear the voice
of someone who even looks like a travel agent?  Or, on
the other hand, do you want to sign up for flying
lessons today?  This exercise may help you decide, and
it will help you learn something useful about yourself.
Read each of the following statements, and think
about how each one makes you feel.  Do you agree or
disagree with it?  Does it make you feel better than you
felt before you read it, or worse?  To help you feel
more involved with this exercise, use the space after
each sentence to write down your feelings about it.
1.  I never want to fly.

2.  I am sick of people bugging me to fly.

3.  I wish I could feel comfortable when I fly.

4.  I wish I could tell people to get off my back
about flying.

5.  If ____________ (you fill in the name) weren't
pressuring me to fly, I wouldn't even be reading this
book.

6.  I hate myself for not flying.

7.  I admire people who can fly comfortably.

8.  I hate people who fly airplanes.

9.  I wish I could travel all over the world.

10.  If people would leave me alone, I'd never want
to leave home, or go anywhere.

Exercise Two:  Writing a Contract
Now that you have used the list of sentences to get
more focused and clear about your feelings, it's time to
make a contract with yourself.  This contract will help
you organize your thoughts about flying, or avoiding
flying, and it will help you focus on what you want to
get out of this book.  Just fill in the blanks as
instructed.
Personal Contract
I _________________[insert your name] hereby want
to whole world to know that I have the following opinion
of traveling by air: [state your opinion in 100 words or
less].

I _________________[insert your name] declare that
my personal goal is to become better at avoiding flying
in the following ways:  [state your goal in 100 words or
less].

I _________________[insert your name] declare that
my personal goal is to become better at flying in the
following ways:  [state your goal in 100 words or less].

When I,  _________________[insert your name], have
completed the self-treatment program set forth in this
book, I declare that I will do the following new
behavior.  [write down a behavior, having to do with
flying or not-flying, that you have never done before.
Possible examples include:  "Telling my boss I insist on
being reassigned to a job that does not require flying,"
or, "Booking a window seat on a flight and looking out
the window during takeoff and landing."]

Now that you have made a contract with yourself, you
deserve to be congratulated.  You have done something
very important.  Even if you do nothing else, you have
organized some of your thoughts and feelings about
flying and not-flying.  You have gotten to know yourself
better, and that is important.  In the chapters that
follow, you will get techniques to use to move closer to
your goals, whether they involve flying better or
avoiding it better.


Chapter Seven:  Learning Not To Fly

Other books about fear of flying focus only on
helping people learn to fly comfortably, and there is
certainly nothing wrong with that--when it works.  In
fact, the next chapter of this book is all about
comfortably learning to fly.  This, however, is not the
answer for everyone; not everyone can be taught to fly
with comfort.  Some people can only resolve their fear
of flying by not flying.  As I have explained, many
people have psychological conflict about flying--they
can neither fly comfortably nor refuse to fly
comfortably.  With successful treatment, some people
will resolve this conflict by comfortably flying, but
others will resolve it by comfortably not flying.
I believe, by the way, that if you can learn to fly
or not-fly with comfort, you will also become better
prepared to do the opposite.  For example, if you can
learn to feel completely secure in your right not to
fly, you can then become psychologically free to
consider flying, knowing that you are considering it
only because you want to and not because you feel
pressured.  People generally resent feeling pressured to
do something--even if the pressure comes from within
themselves--and they find ways to resist.  Once the
pressure to fly is gone, a person may have no further
need to resist and may discover a genuine wish to fly.
Some people, though, will never want to fly, and that
should be their right.  In this chapter we will think
about what you need to comfortably not fly.
To get down to the basics, there are two different
pressures making people fly:  the pressure that comes
from within the people themselves, and the pressure that
comes from the outside.  Learning to manage both of
these pressures is the secret to successfully and
comfortably not flying.
The Pressure That Comes From You
Have you ever considered that you don't need a
reason to say "no" to flying.  You don't have to fly,
you can just refuse, and it's nobody's business but your
own.  You don't even have to know why.  If you don't
like it, don't do it!
People who are afraid of flying tend to be very
defensive about it.  They might feel that they are
inferior to others who do fly, and they might make weak
excuses for their avoidance of flying.  Have you ever
caught yourself making excuses to avoid flying?  You
might claim that you have a cold, and that the cabin
pressure changes will hurt your ears.  You might claim
that you don't have the time to take the trip, or that
you don't have the money to buy the ticket.  Many of us
somehow arrive at the mistaken idea that we can't just
do, or not do, what we want.  Instead, we think we need
to offer people reasons for what we do or don't do.  We
seem to have the idea that we must explain ourselves.
Unfortunately, this can put us at a terrific
disadvantage if someone wants to argue us into doing
something.  Once we start believing that we owe the
arguer an explanation for our actions or preferences, we
can hardly win the argument.  Our hidden assumption is,
if we don't have a good reason to say "no," then we have
to say "yes."  The real truth is, we can just say "no,"
and if the arguer wants a reason, we can say "I don't
have one," or "Go to hell."
So the first thing you need if you want to
comfortably avoid flying is to feel free to do what you
want.  Stop worrying about whether you are crazy, or
whether it is normal to fly, or whether you have a
"phobia," and just focus on what makes you feel good.  I
realize that not-flying is inconvenient, that trains and
cars are slower than airplanes, but I also realize that
you are entitled to do what you want to do--just because
you want to do it.  It is your life, and you have to let
it unfold your way.
Do You Know Why You Don't Like to Fly?  Do You
Know Why Someone Else Does?
The famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner proposed many
interesting new ways of thinking about human behavior.
One of his most intriguing ideas concerns the way we
explain to ourselves why we do things.  Dr. Skinner
proposed that our explanations to ourselves for our
behavior are made up only after the fact.  In other
words, first we do things--for reasons we usually do not
understand--and later we come up with explanations.  We
don't really know what caused us to do one thing or
another, so we make up an explanation.  According to Dr.
Skinner, our explanations are illusory--they allow us to
think we are perfectly reasonable beings, in full
control of ourselves, when in fact, we are merely a
collection of conditioned responses of which we are
generally unaware.
Freudian psychologists disagree with Dr. Skinner
about the causes of behavior, but they do agree about
one thing:  Freudians also believe that we are often
unaware of our real reasons for doing things.  They
believe that many of our real reasons are unconscious,
and that our conscious explanations are only
rationalizations that we come up with to help trick
ourselves into remaining unaware of what really makes us
tick.
The other morning I was driving down the street,
and saw a sign that said "McDonald's."  I pulled in and
had an Egg McMuffin.  Why did I do that?  Was I hungry?
Well, I was a little hungry, but on many other occasions
I have driven right past that McDonald's sign, even when
I was hungrier.  What made me pull in and stop on this
particular morning?  Skinner might say that I was
reacting to a complex set of conditioned responses
which, on that particular morning, all came together to
control my behavior.  Maybe the last straw was the
advertisement for Big Macs that I saw on television the
night before.  In contrast to Skinner, a Freudian might
suggest that I was a little down-in-the-dumps that
morning and that I had unconscious childhood memories of
my mother brightening up my morning with a good hot
breakfast.  To the Freudian, it may have been
depression, rather than actual hunger, that made me pull
in.  Regardless of what Skinner or Freud may believe,
though, I just thought, "I'm hungry.  I think I'll get a
McMuffin."  I had a perfectly acceptable explanation for
my behavior, which nevertheless, may have been perfectly
wrong.
Now what does all this have to do with not-flying?
I am trying to make the point that we really know very
little about why we do things, and I am trying to get
you to feel freer to do what you want, even when you
can't explain your reasons.  We really don't know why
you don't like to fly, but we also don't know why
someone else likes it.
The tendencies to like flying or to hate it both
have to do with psychological causes of which we are
largely unaware.  If I wanted to, I could make up
plausible Freudian explanations that would actually make
the person who likes flying appear to be mentally
imbalanced.   Why does this person have a need to
experience confinement and movement?  Is it left over
from childhood, when the baby enjoyed being thrown up in
the air?  Is it a homosexual need to be symbolically
controlled by the dominant (usually) male pilot?  Does
the airplane symbolize the mother, and is the passenger
symbolically reliving being carried in the womb?  Or, is
getting on the plane simply an act of blind conformity
with the ways of our culture, with conforming being
something we have done since the beginning of time,
whether that meant hunting saber-toothed tigers or going
off to fight, bloodily with the neighboring tribe.
The point here is this:  regardless of why you
don't like to fly and someone else likes it, you are
perfectly free to live as you please and to forget about
annoying psychological interpretations of "your
problem."  Perhaps the person who wants you to fly has
even worse psychological problems which are causing that
person to bug you about flying.  Who knows.  I do know
that one of the common ways that modern people drive
themselves crazy is by psychologically analyzing
themselves.  Some people have a tendency to be too self-
critical, and nowadays, with modern psychological ways
of thinking, some of us can really take self-
criticalness to the limit.  We can pick ourselves apart
using the latest psychological jargon that we heard on
TV or read in a magazine.  Self-criticism can be useful,
but it can also be very destructive.  If you don't want
to fly, you don't have to analyze it.  Just don't do it.
The Pressure From Outside of You
Once you stop fighting with yourself and start
feeling freer to do what you want, you will be much
better able to say "no" to flying, if that is what you
feel like saying.  Unfortunately, you must be ready to
deal with pressures from outside you that will push you
towards flying.  Throughout this book, I have talked
about these pressures from your family, your employer,
your friends, the air travel industry, and so forth.
Now it is time to think about how you can fight these
pressures.
To resist the pressure to fly, you must be able to
assert yourself.  Perhaps you have heard of
Assertiveness Training.  This is a psychological method
of helping people get what they want from other people
and deal with other people in healthy ways, so they
neither get bullied nor bully others.  Assertiveness
means being able to ask for what you want and feeling
free to say "no" to what others want.  If you are
assertive, you will neither be pushed around by others,
nor will you have to resort to anger to get others to do
what you want.  Assertiveness is essential if you are to
successfully avoid flying, since many people will try to
get you to fly.
Here is an example of the kind of pressure that
flight fearful people often find troublesome.  Someone
might say to you, "Quit being such a chicken and just
come along with us on our flight."  Obviously, this
person is putting you in an awkward position.  You are
being called "chicken" because of your fear and you are
being pressured to do the thing you don't want to do.
How can you handle this?  Here are some possibilities,
both good and bad:
1.  You could make excuses: "Gee, I'd love to come
along, but I'm busy that day."  This might work, but it
has certain drawbacks.  For one thing, they could change
the day of the flight, making your excuse obsolete.  For
another, it doesn't do anything about the way you just
got called "chicken."
2.  You could agree to fly, even though it is not
what you want to do.  This saves you from further
humiliation and name calling by your acquaintances, but
it means that you are giving up control of your life.
3.  You could respond aggressively.  You could say,
"Don't ever call me chicken.  In fact, don't ever talk
to me again.  You're an idiot, and I wouldn't fly with
you for all the tea in China."  There is something to be
said for aggressiveness in response to a put-down.
Obviously, this style of responding will protect you
from further pressure or insults.  However, there is a
big problem with aggressive rejoinders:  If aggressive
replies are all you have available, you will hesitate to
use them because you will usually consider them too
severe to use.  Chances are, you will say nothing and
just get pushed around, because you are hesitant to
really attack your acquaintance, relative, or boss.
This is the same problem a fisherman would face if
he only had a harpoon and no small nets, hooks or lines.
He would have no way to catch the smaller fish.
Ironically, many of the people whose minds are filled
with aggressive rejoinders, and who walk around thinking
of all the nasty put-downs they could have used on
someone, are the very people who get pushed around the
most.  They hesitate to use their repertoire of
aggressive rejoinders because they don't want to be
quite that mean.  If only they had less forceful things
they could say, they could save themselves from being
pushed around.
4.  You could respond assertively, not
aggressively, and protect yourself without being mean.
You could say, "I don't want to go on that flight, and
I'd rather you didn't accuse me of being chicken."  If
the person refuses to take "no" for an answer, you would
have to be more insistent yourself.  If the person then
says, "Why don't you want to go?  You're not afraid of
flying are you?", your reply could be something like
this, "I don't appreciate your pressuring me.  When I
say "no," that is exactly what I mean, and I don't owe
you an explanation."  Obviously, this could go on and
on, with you finally needing to walk away.
The important thing about responding assertively is
that you avoid using excessive force or nastiness.  You
only act as forceful as you need do in order to protect
yourself.  You should also notice that you don't owe the
other person an explanation, and, in the example I gave,
you did not provide one.  That is crucial.  If you start
to believe that you owe explanations to people, then you
are easily put on the defensive.
Others have written books on assertiveness
training.  My favorite of these is by Manual Smith,
"When I Say 'No,' I feel guilty."  It is a catalog of
social predicaments and assertive techniques for
resolving them.  If you are interested in learning more
about these techniques, I recommend that you read a book
such as the one by Smith.   My purpose here is simply to
propose to you that you can be assertive and that you do
not owe others explanations or compliance with their
need to get you to fly.
Real Life Quandaries
Let us say that you can master the idea of
assertively dealing with difficult people who want you
to fly.  Unfortunately, in the real world, this may not
solve all your problems about avoiding flying.  There
are many factors that will make your life difficult if
you choose to avoid flying.  For some people, flying is
a condition of their continued employment or job
advancement.  What do you do in that predicament?
I won't pretend to have an easy answer to this
problem.  It is a simple thing to tell you that you have
a right not to fly, but it becomes much more complex
when someone threatens to make you pay a price for
avoiding flying.  Is avoiding flying worth your job,
potential vacations, or your marriage?  One thing I can
tell you is that people do make decisions based on their
personal feelings and wishes--decisions that other
people would consider impractical and foolish.  After
the October 17, 1989 earthquake some of my neighbors in
Santa Cruz County decided to move away to areas that are
less desirable in many ways, both esthetically and
financially.  They did this despite geologists'
predictions that Santa Cruz County would not suffer
another major earthquake in our lifetimes.  They moved
anyway because of their negative feelings about their
homes and the land their homes sit on.  They did not
decide to move based on geologists' predictions or
scientific evidence, and they did not decide to move
based on what was practical.  Some people gave up well
paying jobs and sold their homes at great losses.  Did
they do the wrong thing?  Not for them.  Rightly or
wrongly, they will derive a feeling of security and
comfort from knowing they no longer live near the San
Andreas Fault.  Are they foolish, or have they made good
decisions that will bring them peace of mind?
If you were to make a similar major life change
because of your negative feelings about flying, some
people would certainly condemn you for it.  For example,
they might consider you crazy for giving up a great
career, one that required flying, simply because you
didn't want to fly.  Or, they might consider you crazy
for passing up a great vacation on account of your
feelings about flying.  I do not know whether you should
or should not give up things that are important to you
because of your feelings about flying, but I do know
this.  You must live your life in keeping with your own
feelings.  A person cannot live a satisfied life by
forcing oneself to do things just because they are the
commonplace or normal things to do.  If you decide that
you and flying must have nothing further to do with each
other, it is no one's place to tell you you are wrong.
These are difficult choices, and no one, not even a duly
licensed psychologist, can tell you that forcing
yourself to fly is more correct than changing your life
so you won't have to.




Chapter Eight:  Learning to Fly--If You Want To

If you want to know how to prepare yourself so you
will not find flying excessively thrilling--or, in
Professor Mehrabian's lingo, "arousing"--a good starting
point is to look at a group of people who are not scared
and to ask how they do it.  One obvious group is pilots.
I suspect that pilots are probably not predisposed to be
as fearful about flying as most people.  Most of them
are probably "screeners,"  and they may well be born
that way.  Maybe they were the kind of babies who never
outgrew the stage where they laughed uproariously if you
tossed them up in the air, and maybe they were the kind
of adolescents who craved the thrills of skateboarding
and did the wildest jumps.  Unfortunately, we cannot do
anything to change a person's innate predispositions.
If you weren't born a screener or a thrill-seeker, there
is little we can do to change you.  There is, though,
something else that helps pilots avoid feeling scared--
their knowledge and experience.  They know what is going
on at all times, and just about everything that strikes
you, the passenger, as a new and worrisome experience
is, for them, old hat.  As we discussed in Chapter Four,
experience helps organize your environment and lowers
the "environmental load."  Along with experience, pilots
also feel more comfortable because of their ability,
unlike you, to do something about what's bothering them.
When certain unpleasant things occur, like bumps, they
can think of solutions that will make the bumps stop.
You can't.  In fact, most passengers wouldn't know where
to begin.
When my daughter was three years old, she didn't
know how to solve the problem of an overflowing
Mixmaster.  We were making pancakes, and batter was
oozing everywhere.  Then I introduced her to a solution
that all adults would instantly think of--activating the
"on-off switch."  We turned the mixer off, and the
problem stopped.  This is something that, as adults, we
assume everyone understands.  How can someone not know
about turning off the mixer when it is overflowing?  Now
consider this:  Much of what pilots know, as surely as
you know how to turn off an overflowing electric mixer,
you have never learned.  Pilots are not necessarily
geniuses, but they do possess a world of knowledge about
flying.  Many a scared passenger would get even more
scared to learn about the problems pilots face daily in
the cockpit--ice on the wings, minor wind shear, short
approaches, holding patterns, drifting above or below
the glide-slope, just to name a few.  For the pilot,
though, the solutions to these problems are as easy as
turning off an overflowing electric mixer.
Knowledge and experience make all the difference.
There is a ferocious looking dog that lives on a sheep
ranch near my home.  This dog, Sarah, weighs about 70
pounds, and, to make matters worse, she has a hideously
loud bark and plenty of energy.  To an outsider, meeting
Sarah could appear to be a fatal encounter.  To locals,
though, meeting Sarah just means you are about to get
licked, and after a rain you may get covered with muddy
paw prints.  Getting torn to shreds by an angry dog is a
lot different from getting licked with love.  People who
know Sarah never feel scared, but people who don't
always do.  As I say, knowledge and experience make all
the difference.
Most fearful flyers, when in an airplane, can't
tell the difference between something to get really
scared about and something that isn't worth noticing.
That is one of the reasons they are usually feeling
scared.  Last night, I was a passenger on a US Air
Boeing 737-300.  As we were taxiing for take-off, I
heard a loud growling sound that periodically seemed to
come from the engines.  Was this the sign of a terrible
malfunction, something of which the pilots were
tragically unaware?  Or, was it nothing?  Was the plane
about to experience wildly asymmetrical thrust the
moment we lifted off the ground?  Was I about to die?
Or, was this sound just a meaningless noise, similar to
dozens of meaningless noises made by my Volvo because it
has 155,000 miles on it?  My presence here today writing
these words clearly proves that those engine noises were
nothing to worry about.  If I had had enough experience
sitting in that particular area of the cabin of a Boeing
737-300, I might have known the answer, or if I had less
of a tendency to notice things going on around me, I
wouldn't have heard the noise or needed an answer.  For
someone who does tend to hear the noises and notice the
movements, and, who along with that, tends to worry,
answers can be very important.
Understanding the Scary Sensations
To help you prevent flight fear, here is a list of
things that might scare you in flight and the
information you need so you will not feel scared.  The
difference between being thrilled and being scared lies
in the way you think about what is happening.  If you
believe the thrilling sensation will hurt you, then you
will become scared.  If, on the other hand, you believe
the thrilling sensation is safe, you may be somewhat
uncomfortable, but you will not be scared.  If you
understand what is happening, you can re-label the
thrilling sensations as "normal."  They will still be
thrilling, but you will not consider them signs of
danger, and they will not be scary.
(I should also mention that as far as fear is
concerned, experience builds callouses.  Just as
repeated pressure from your pen might put a callous on
your finger, and thereby keep from finger from feeling
the pressure, repeated exposure to the thing that scares
you will make you less afraid.)
Airports and Movements on the Ground;:  Modern
airports can be divided into three parts.  These are:
the airplane parking area (known to pilots as the
"ramp"), the airplane driving area (known to pilots as
the "taxiways"), and the runways (the places that you
find overly exciting, where the airplanes barrel along
as fast as they can and then leap into the air).
    The Ramp or Parking Area;:  Several
potentially scary things will happen here.  After you
find your seat, put your carry-on luggage in the
overhead compartment, and fasten your seat belt, you
will hear banging noises below you.  This is the sound
of luggage being loaded into the plane.  It is important
to know about these bangs, because if you are afraid of
flying, you might make up all sorts of horrifying
explanations for the noises.  You might mistakenly
imagine that a mechanic is haphazardly trying to fix a
broken part with a sledge hammer, or that the engine or
wing is broken, and the loose piece is wildly flapping
around.  The truth is that everything that is done to
the airplane by the ground crew makes noises, and that
includes opening and shutting the numerous doors and
hatches as the luggage and meals are loaded on board.
Even the coffee makers are noisy--each of them creates a
bang as the flight attendants lock them in place ready
to brew.
I once discovered that the sound of my foot hitting
the floor as I uncrossed my legs was enough to create
stark terror in the woman sitting in front of me.  She
felt terrified not because the noise of my foot was
particularly loud, but because of her incorrect idea
about the meaning of the noise she was hearing.  She
apparently imagined that the thud of my foot was the
sound of something breaking or malfunctioning.  Maybe
she imagined that the wing was coming loose.  Who knows?
The important thing to learn from this poor woman's
terror is that having the wrong idea can lead to fear.
The idea of me uncrossing my legs is not scary, but the
idea of the wing coming off is.  It is important not to
jump to horrible conclusions by mistake.  The more you
know about flying, the less likely you are to jump to
scary conclusions.
While sitting on a parked airplane waiting to back
away from the gate, you might notice a variety of things
that appear to be signs of trouble but are not.  One
that I have found fascinating is the sometimes erratic
performance of the air-conditioning or cabin
ventilation.  Sometimes it will put out no air at all.
Then, it will start up and blow pretty well, only to
stop again soon.  The cabin might be too hot or too
cold.  To the person who is already worried about
flying, these conditions can be taken as ominous signs
of impending failure.  You might wonder whether some
crucial electrical failure has affected the air-
conditioning and will soon affect the engines as well--
but, as your bad luck would have it, only after the ill-
fated crew gets you airborne!  You might add to your
fear with the idea that only you, but not the flight
crew, are aware of the erratic performance of the cabin
ventilation system.  The fact is that airplane
ventilators and air-conditioners often act erratically
on the ground.  I can't explain it myself, but I can
assure you it is not a precursor to a crash.  It's just
the way airplanes are.
The typical way you leave the Ramp is by backing
up.  If you are flying a plane that is designed to get
in and out of commuter airports quickly, it may be able
to back itself up.  If you are flying a jumbo jet,
designed for long-haul trips, or if your airline or
airport requires it for noise abatement or fuel saving,
your plane will be pushed back by a powerful tractor.
You may not like either of these choices, since they
both involve going backwards, and people want to go
forward.  If your plane backs itself up, it will do so
with much noise.  The pilot will reverse the thrust of
the jet engines and use a strong burst of power for a
second or two to get the plane rolling backwards.  If
you plane is pushed back by a tractor, the movement will
be much more gentle and almost completely silent.
During the push-back, as it is called, you may
notice airline workers outside the window watching your
plane with concerned looks.  They will occasionally
signal the pilot with a pair of flourescent orange
sticks.  Please don't start worrying that something is
wrong with the airplane.  You might imagine that they
are watching, with great concern, the loose and rusted
part the mechanic told them about.  You might imagine
that one of their signals is a dire warning that the
pilot refuses to heed.  Nonsense!  They are only
watching to make sure that you don't bump into anything.
Remember, the pilots can't see behind them any better
than you can.  The pilots need the ground crew to guide
the push-back.  The orange sticks are signaling the
pilot, or another crew member, where the plane should
go--left, right, backwards, forwards, or stop.  One of
these airline workers may be wearing a headset which
allows him or her to talk to the pilot.  After the plane
has been pushed back far enough, this ground crew member
will disconnect the headset, while the tractor driver
disconnects the tractor.  The ground crew member with
the orange sticks will signal the pilot to move forward
and, finally, pointing the sticks straight out towards
the runway, will tell the pilot that the plane is his
(or hers).  From this point on, the pilots are solely
responsible for controlling the plane (with advice from
the air-traffic-controllers).
If you were pushed-back by a tractor, you might
have noticed a series of noises.  These noises were the
sounds of the engines starting.  When the engines start
you might notice that the cabin lights momentarily
flicker.  If you are like many fearful flyers, you will
decide that the flickering cabin lights are another
sign, like the erratic air-conditioners, of impending
malfunction.  But flickering lights on the ground are
par-for-the-course and nothing to worry about.  If these
momentary black-outs of the cabin lights scare you, it
is only because you have an incorrect expectation about
how the plane should work.  In your imagination, the
cabin lights should never black out, so, when they do,
you conclude that something bad has happened.  It is
important to have the right expectations, so you will
not worry needlessly.
        The Taxiway;:  Once the plane starts to
move forward, it will be heading towards the runway.
They way it gets there is by "driving" on taxiways.
Taxiways look like runways, except they have yellow
lines down the middle of them instead of the white ones
that mark runways.  At night, the taxiways are outlined
with blue lights and the runways with white ones.  From
your cabin window, the blue lights look chaotic and do
not appear to outline anything.  This is because of your
poor vantage point.  Remember, as a passenger you can
only look sideways.  From the cockpit the blue lights
form very neat lines that define the taxiways remarkably
clearly, and they are also very pretty to look at.  (A
curiosity of runway and taxiway lighting at night is
that the lights are generally about a foot above the
ground.  At a dark airport, when all you can see are the
lights and not the runway itself, the pilot can have the
illusion that the airplane has actually sunken into the
runway, because the runway appears to be at the height
of the lights, instead of a foot below the lights.  This
is one the many details about flying that pilots know
about and which you have probably never heard of.)
At a large airport, you may need to travel
literally miles on taxiways before you find your runway.
Part of the reason for this is that taxiways are laid
out to avoid crossing active runways, so you have to
take the roundabout route.  As you travel along the
taxiways, you will see other airplanes, some moving,
some parked, and some junked, new and old hanger
buildings, airplane repair shops, and the ubiquitous
airport hotels.
As the plane taxis, the flight crew is very busy.
They are reading the pre-takoff checklist.  This is a
list of things that should be checked or adjusted prior
to takeoff.  By the time you reach the runway, the crew
has tested the engines and the flight controls, and has
set the radios and navigational devices for the
beginning leg of the flight.  All this is done on the
ground, so that the crew will not have very much to do
after takeoff except fly the plane.
(Worry:  What if the crew gets distracted and sets
something incorrectly?  Answer:  The usual answer you
get from people trying to reassure you is something
about how highly trained and professional the crew is,
with the implication that they never make mistakes.
This is nearly true, but I like to give a different
answer.  I tell people that pilots, like other humans,
make minor mistakes all the time, but that making a
small mistake is not a big deal.  Think about driving a
car.  Forgetting to turn off your turn signal or parking
with your headlights on are mistakes, but they do not
cause a crash.  Pilots, too, make minor mistakes that
don't amount to anything, such as mistakenly talking to
the ground-controller when they should be calling the
tower.  Does this mean they can just as easily make a
big mistake?  No!  Ask yourself whether the fact that
you accidentally forgot to turn off the headlights in
your car means that you will also accidentally run into
a brick wall.  I don't think so.)
(Another Worry:  What if something breaks down?
The usual answer you get to this question goes something
like this.  "Airplanes are very carefully checked and
maintained, and it is very unlikely for anything to
break down."  This is true, but it is not the answer I
like to give.  I tell people that things break down all
the time, and that airplanes often take-off with
something not working right!  Does that surprise you?  I
thought it might, but it is true.
If your imagination tells you that the airplane
will crash if something breaks, you will worry
needlessly.  Airplanes, like your car, will fly well
enough with a variety of things broken.  I have flown
airplanes with bad radios, with no working radios, with
navigational devices that quit or went crazy, and with
engines that leaked oil or had bad ignition systems.
None of things things was enough to even begin to put me
in danger.
I once pulled on a handle labelled "carburetor
heat," and the handle simply came off in my hand, along
with about two feet of cable that is supposed to attach
it to the engine.  You need carburetor heat to prevent a
condition known as carburetor icing, which is somewhat
likely to happen when the engine is running slowly, such
as before landing.  After this handle came off, my co-
pilot and I realized we didn't know whether to assume
that the carburetor heat was turned on, turned off, or
somewhere in between.  We solved the problem by
operating the engine in a way that was unlikely to cause
carburetor ice, and we returned to the airport
immediately.  There was no reason to worry, although we
thought the prudent thing to do was get it fixed.
Remember, if you have the right expectation, you will
not worry needlessly.  Airplanes, like your car, do not
have to be perfect to be safe.)
One thing that the flight crew takes care of on the
ground is the "clearance."  This is a route of flight
that is given to the crew by radio by the air-traffic-
controllers.  This route will be communicated by
telephone or computer to all air-traffic-controllers
along your plane's route of flight.  If all the radios
in your plane should somehow fail after the plane takes
off, your pilots will follow the route given to them in
their clearance, and the controllers on the ground will
make sure that no other airplanes get in the way.  The
route will be kept clear all the way to your
destination.  Your pilot's flight plan includes an
estimated time enroute.  In the event of complete
communication loss, the pilot and the air traffic
controllers will expect that the pilot will begin his
landing approach based on this estimated time.  If he
arrives late, he will begin his approach immediately,
since the controllers will be holding all traffic and
waiting for him.  If he arrives early, he will fly a
racetrack-shaped holding pattern at a designated place
near the airport to use up time, and then he will begin
his approach at the expected time.  The pilot and the
controllers don't need to communicate, because they have
already agreed upon standard procedures to follow if
communication becomes impossible.  So even total
communication failure is another thing that makes little
sense to worry about, although I recognize that most
people's worries did not come about in the first place
because they "made sense."
        The Runway;:  When your plane gets near the
runway, it may encounter a traffic jam.  Several planes
may be waiting for takeoff ahead of yours.  This is no
different from traffic jams you experience in your car,
except for one thing.  The pilot can complain to the
air-traffic-controllers about the delay--not that it
does any good, and the pilot can receive information
about how long the delay will last.  Finally, your plane
is cleared onto the runway, but you may have to wait
again for a few minutes until landing or departing
traffic gets out of the way.  In many metropolitan
areas, several airports are nearby, and all the airline
traffic is coordinated.  For example, your departure
delay on the runway at San Francisco Airport might be
caused by flights leaving from Oakland Airport, or even
San Jose.
Finally, your pilot hears the magic words "cleared
for takoff."  Now you are ready to fly, and the crew
begins the well-planned and coordinated job of getting
the plane off the ground.  One member of the flight crew
will fly the plane, and the other will keep track of
crucial speeds and call them out aloud to the one who is
flying.  The pilots know exactly how long the runway is,
and they know the point at which they will takeoff--even
if an engine fails!  Once they get beyond that point,
they will not try to stop because they will not have
enough runway remaining.  If they are beyond that point,
and an engine has trouble, the safest thing to do is
take-off anyway.  This may sound awful to you, but to
the pilots it is routine.  They practice this sort of
emergency in the simulator all the time.  Fortunately,
today's airplanes have so much extra power that they can
takeoff, climb, fly back to the airport and land, even
after an engine has failed.
Flying;:  Once airborne, a variety of things
will happen that are perfectly normal, but are likely to
worry the person who is fearful of flying.  For example,
the plane might fly into some turbulence.  The cabin
might vibrate, bounce and bump, or, you might experience
sensations akin to riding in an elevator.  If you are
observant, you might even notice the wings flexing as
the plane bounces.  The wings of the Boeing 747 have
been experimentally flexed as much as 15 feet at the
tips, so you can be assured wings are made to flex.  Of
course, safe or not, turbulence is never pleasant.  We
are much more comfortable when the cabin is perfectly
smooth.  However, turbulence is generally harmless.  You
have probably already been told by someone that
airplanes are designed to fly through turbulence without
falling apart.  In fact, it would make no sense any
other way.  Planes often encounter turbulence, just as
cars often encounter bumpy roads.  Planes must be
designed to handle turbulence.  If the turbulence were
to get particularly bad, the pilot can take special
actions to protect the plane.  The pilot can ask Air
Traffic Control for an altitude change to try to fly out
of it.  In addition, the pilot can slow the plane down
to a speed called "maneuvering speed."  This is a speed
at which the airplane is safe from damage, no matter how
severe the turbulence gets.  Another thing the pilot can
do is stop trying to maintain a particular altitude and
just "go with the flow."  In severe turbulence, pilots
will sometimes allow the plane to change altitude by
several thousand feet to avoid having the airplane get
stressed.  All these things will ensure that the plane
will be safe.  The ride you get will be anything but
fun--it will be nauseating, distressing, and downright
miserable--but the plane can handle it.  The most
important thing for you, as a passenger, to do is keep
your seat belt fastened.  Passengers occasionally get
injured in severe turbulence because they are not
wearing seat belts and end up getting knocked around the
cabin.
There is absolutely nothing I can tell you that
will make flight through turbulence more appealing.  It
is just no fun and never will be.  However, I can tell
you that you are far more likely to win $30 million in
the California Lottery than you are to be seriously
injured flying through turbulence.
Another aspect of flying that many people dislike
are the sensations of rapidly rising and falling, as
well as sudden turns and speed changes.  If you dislike
riding in elevators, you will dislike this too.  In
general, the flight crew tries to climb and descend
gradually enough so that you will not notice.  Often,
they succeed.  Unfortunately, sometimes they are forced
to make rapid climbs and descents.  I have talked to
many people who incorrectly imagine that these rapid
climbs and descents are caused by near mid-air
collisions or other impending disasters.  If you have
thoughts like that during flight, you are bound to get
scared, and it will be pointless.  Near mid-air
collisions do occur, yet they are extremely rare.  Rapid
climbs and descents, sharp turns and speed changes, are
commonplace aspects of flying, and they are typically
caused by the most ordinary of reasons-- traffic flow.
Much of flight is like driving.  If you are driving
and suddenly see a good parking place, you might
abruptly turn the steering wheel and pull in.
Similarly, if Air Traffic Control sees a chance to
squeeze you into the line-up for landing at San
Francisco Airport by bringing you to a lower altitude
quickly, and having you make a sharp turn, your pilot
may go for it.  Your pilot may get the following offer:
Air Traffic Control says, "There are six planes lined up
for take-off and four inbound behind you.  If you can
give me a rapid descent down to 6000 [feet] and slow to
180 [nautical miles per hour] immediately, I can get you
in now."  If your pilot has no reason to object to this
plan, he or she will reply, "We'll take you up on your
offer.  Flight 13 down to six and 180 on the speed."
Air Traffic Control, having just closed the deal, will
reply, "Roger, Flight 13.   Cleared for the Runway 28
Visual Approach.  Traffic is a Qantas heavy [jumbo jet]
at two o'clock [ahead to your right].  He's for the
right [runway]; you'll be for the left [runway].
Caution, wake turbulence from an American DC-10 on short
final."  This is routine for the pilot.  In fact, it's
fun.  The pilot will cut the power back to "flight
idle," lower the flaps and maybe the landing gear too
(to help slow the plane down by creating more wind
resistance), and lower the nose of the plane.
Unfortunately, while the flight crew is having fun doing
all this fancy maneuvering, you may feel like the
airplane has just dived into a mountain of Jello.  Don't
let your mind wander to disasters.  Climbs, descents and
speed changes are all part of flying.  You may not like
them, but that doesn't mean they are signs of danger.
I could go on and on trying to anticipate the
concerns of readers about aspects of flight.  I have
tried in this chapter to talk about the most common
misunderstandings people have about flying.  I hope that
by correcting your misunderstandings, some of your fear
will go away.  If this discussion has gotten you
interested in how flying works, I can recommend things
you can do to add to your understanding of flying.
First of all, you can go to a store like Radio Shack and
buy a radio that allows you to listen to pilots.  These
radios can usually be purchased for less than $20.  They
will allow you to listen to all radio communications
within your line of sight.  This means that you will
almost certainly be able to hear the pilots' side of
conversations.  If you are in most areas, you will also
be able to hear air traffic controllers talking too.
Different frequencies are used for the control tower,
the ground controller, weather reports, arrival and
departure around metropolitan areas, and high altitude
traffic control.  Experiment.  It's fun.  Secondly, if
you are really getting interested in flying, you can
sign up for flying lessons at your local general
aviation airport.  Believe it or not, many people can
learn enough to solo an airplane for less than $1000.
Whether or not you get that far is up to you.
Regardless of whether you solo, you will learn enough to
begin to feel like an "insider" when you fly, and you
will understand far more than your fellow passengers.
Finally, if you aren't ready to do either of these
things, just continue to read this book and do the
exercises that come later.



Chapter Nine:  Relaxation Methods

This chapter begins self-treatment for fear of
flying and fear of not-flying.  Treatment will help
decrease these fears.  The foundation of the treatment
is a method called relaxation training.  The opposite of
being nervous, anxious, or scared, is to be relaxed, and
relaxation is a skill that everyone who is reading this
book needs to master.  Regardless of whether your goal
is to fly better or not-fly better, this chapter will
help you.  You are always better off to be relaxed when
you are facing a situation you find difficult.
When I was a psychology intern at the Palo Alto
Veterans Hospital in California, I learned how to do
behavior therapy--the treatment this book is about--from
one of the world's foremost practitioners of this
method, Dr. John N. Marquis.  As I watched Dr. Marquis
working with his patients, I asked him many questions,
and sometimes his answers would surprise me.  One of my
naive questions was whether there might be a danger of
getting people too relaxed.  What would happen, I
wondered, if something really dangerous happened, and
the person, because of our successful treatment, reacted
with relaxation rather than fear?  I was worried that
excessively relaxed people might be unable to react
appropriately to danger.  I thought that too much
relaxation was a bad thing.
Dr. Marquis explained to me that being relaxed, at
least as relaxed as possible under the circumstances,
always puts you at an advantage, rather than a
disadvantage.  Take fear of flying, for example.  Let us
say that I treat you so successfully for this fear that
you nearly always feel calm in airplanes.  Now, let's
say further that your plane crashes (Calm down!  It's
only an example.).  Consider this:  No matter how scared
you are, the plane will still crash.  No matter how
relaxed you are, the plane will still crash.  However,
in most plane crashes there are survivors.  Now here is
the important point:  The survivors are the ones,
usually, who can find their way out of the smoke and
away from the wreckage of the airplane.  Which frame of
mind would allow a person to make such an effective
escape--sheer panic or relative relaxation?  Obviously,
the more relaxed and calm you are, the more clearly you
will think and the better able you will be to solve
whatever problems need to be solved to save yourself.
Your mind is able to recognize danger and formulate
plans much better when your body is in a relaxed state.
Except for the simplest reflexes like jerking your hand
away from a hot stove, panic is useless.  Relaxation is
always best.
In this chapter we will focus on methods for
relaxing.  People can get relaxed in many different
ways, and this chapter is a catalog of relaxation
methods.  You should read through all the methods and
make note of the ones you like the best.  In the next
chapter we will discuss how you can use the relaxation
methods you are learning here.
Although you might enjoy reading about these
relaxation methods, when it comes to actually using the
method of your choice, you may resist, procrastinate, or
forget to do it.  How do I know?  Because I've been
through this many times before.  People have trouble
taking the time to relax or to work on therapeutic
programs.  It may be especially difficult for you, doing
it with a self-help book.  If I were seeing you in my
office, you would have two incentives for doing the
exercises that you don't have now, as a book reader.
First, if you failed to do the exercise, you would have
to face me in the next session and confess.  For many
people, this is a good incentive.  They imagine that I
will get angry at them for procrastinating, even though,
when they put me to the test, I make it clear that
deciding to change or resist is completely up to them.
Second, the fee that people pay therapists serves as a
good incentive to get patients to do their homework.
It's pretty hard to pay someone over $100 for a session
and to show up at that session empty-handed.  However,
since you are working on your flying problem by
yourself, no one will know whether you are following the
program or not, and there will be no added cost for
goofing off.  I say all this as a warning:  It is
difficult to change, so you must be very very vigilant
about ways that you might drag your heels.
Two Methods for Use When Flying
The following two methods of relaxation do not cure
anything, but they give people a way to temporarily
control their fears.  These methods help you turn off
your anxiety when you are actually flying.  They are
designed to be used only on the day of your flight.
In the section that follows, I will describe other
methods of relaxation that are to be used before you
fly, as part of a treatment program, to help you
overcome your fears.
Method One:  Medication
For the sake of completeness, and to take care of
the obvious first, we should begin by considering
tranquilizers.  Tranquilizers are prescription
medications that make people feel relaxed.  Although
tranquilizers have certain drawbacks, compared with non-
medical methods of relaxation, they are certainly the
simplest method to use.  Nearly anyone who knows how to
swallow a pill can succeed at relaxing with a
tranquilizer.
I must confess that, despite my years of training
in psychological methods of relaxation, I have many
patients who, with my blessing, use tranquilizers in
conjunction with psychological treatment for fear of
flying.  Even if patients never actually swallow the
pill, many are reassured just to know that they are
carrying the pill on the plane.  For these people, the
knowledge that are in possession of a medication that
will, in less than an hour, calm their fears and cause
them to feel more relaxed, is greatly reassuring.
Most tranquilizers belong to a family of drugs
called benzodiazepines.  Currently, the two most popular
members of this family are known by the brand names
Valium and Xanax.  My patients generally obtain their
tranquilizers from the psychiatrists on the staff of my
group practice.  Patients are typically instructed to
take one pill the morning of the flight, another pill an
hour before the flight, and possibly additional pills as
needed.  Proper dosage is carefully worked out by the
prescribing physician, taking into account the health
needs of the patient and the specific type of medication
used.  Too much medication will put a person to sleep,
and too little may allow the person to still feel
scared.
If you want to use tranquilizers when you fly, you
may be able to obtain them from your internist or family
doctor simply by explaining your problem.  However, this
is prescription medication, and it is not for everyone.
Only take tranquilizers at the direction of your
physician.  Your physician may have good reasons not to
give you tranquilizers because of your particular health
problems.  Never use someone else's prescription.  It is
illegal and could be dangerous.
Method Two:  Alcohol
You may be surprised to see alcohol listed here as
a relaxation method.   Even I am surprised, since
drinking is not a method that I have ever recommended to
anyone for any purpose.  However, I am listing it here
as a relaxation technique because it is probably the
most popular technique that airline passengers use--and
the airlines even provide it.  The consumption of
alcoholic beverages is nearly as much a part of flying
as takeoff and landing.  If you hold a first-class
ticket, or choose the right airline, or encounter just
the right delay at the airport, you can even begin your
on-board drinking while still on the ground, often at no
extra charge.  In fact, you can start your drinking
almost as soon as you get to the airport.  You will pass
bars at every part of the passenger terminal, before and
after you pass the security checkpoint, some with chairs
and some where you stand, some with fine glassware and
others with cheap plastic cups, some that sell drinks at
prevailing rates and others that charge enormous
markups.  The one thing they all have in common is that
they dispense ethanol.
Drinking ethanol is a method of self-medicating
flight fear that many people use.  Is it a good idea?
This is a complicated question, especially in the
present day, when we are almost daily discovering
additional health hazards, and practically no health
benefits, of drinking.   I will say one thing about
alcohol and flight fear:  If it really works for you, I
won't knock it.  However, if you drink excessively while
flying, and you still don't feel better, you are making
a mistake.  Keep in mind that one of the big problems
with addictive substances like alcohol is that people
tend to use increasing amounts of them even when the
substance is not bringing about the desired effect.
The patients I see in my practice do not get much
benefit from mixing alcohol with flying--even if they
get plastered, and many of them do, they still manage
somehow to feel fear.  I actually find it amazing that
these people can drink to the point of outright
intoxication, far above the legal limit for driving, and
still not sedate themselves enough to feel comfortable
flying.  Apparently, many people do find it helpful to
drink before and during flights, but these are generally
not the people I see in my office.
Based on my clinical experience with the multitude
of problems caused by alcohol, and the poor results I
have seen when flight phobic people use alcohol, I would
not recommend that you try it.  If you are interested in
a temporary, chemical means of curtailing anxiety, see a
physician about a tranquilizer.
Methods For Use in a Self-Help Treatment
Program
The methods that follow will be used for the self-
help treatment program that is discussed in the next
chapters.  As you read about each of these methods,
think about the ones you like the best.  They will serve
a variety of purposes in the treatment that follows.
Method Three:  A Warm Bath
Taking a warm bath is as good a method of
relaxation as any, yet it is so simple that people
overlook it.  Like many relaxation methods, it will work
if you do it.  Many people, though, in today's stressed-
out world, just don't think they have the time to relax.
They think they need all their time for work, commuting
and other frantic activities.  Ironically, they always
seem to find the time to "kick back" when they finally
enter the hospital suffering from some stress-related
disease.
If people were more in touch with the needs of
their bodies, more of them would take warm baths.  If
you already own a hot tub or spa, you are way ahead of
the game.  Warm baths, hot tubs or spas all help you
relax because of a simple principle:  muscles relax when
they are warmed.  This is why people can so easily fall
asleep while sunbathing.  Tranquilizers and warm baths
cause relaxation in the same way:  They relax the
striated muscles of your body.  When your muscles are
physically relaxed, you will not feel nervous.  The
feeling of nervousness or anxiety is often located in
your body, even though you may think it is in your mind.
If your body can be made to physically relax, your mind
often will follow.
The instructions for the "warm bath method" of
relaxation are simple.  Find some time for yourself when
you won't be disturbed and when you don't have to answer
the phone.  Fill the tub with bath water that is as hot
as you can comfortably tolerate.  If you want to be
scientific about this, use a thermometer and get the
water up to about 102 degrees.  Get into the tub and
find a comfortable position.  Now just remain there and
enjoy it for at least 15 minutes.  If the water starts
to cool, add some more hot water.  Don't try to read or
do anything productive; just relax.  If you want some
entertainment, listen to some music, but no television
or talk-radio.  Let your mind just goof off.  If you
follow these instructions, you will get relaxed.
Method Four:  Vigorous Exercise
Vigorous exercises, such as running, bicycling,
aerobic dancing or others, cause relaxation in a
different way.  They relax muscles by fatiguing them.
Tired muscles tend to relax, and relaxed muscles make
people feel relaxed.  Many books have been written about
exercise and how to do it, so I won't reiterate it here.
If you don't want to get it from a book, you can join a
health club.  Most likely, if you haven't been
exercising already, you will not start now.  However, if
you have been exercising, you can keep in mind this new
use for it.  We will combine exercise with the visual
imagery methods in the next chapter to help you get
relaxed about flying.
.c2Method Five:  Meditation
As with exercise, I will not try to teach you to
meditate in this book.  Many books have been written on
this subject, and just about every town has a
Transcendental Meditation Center where you can learn a
technique that has been proven repeatedly to help people
in a variety of ways.  Also, like exercise, I do not
expect you to learn to meditate just to deal with
flying.  If you do, that is great.  However, I am mostly
interested in people who are already meditating or who
have practiced this at some time in their lives.  Keep
it in mind as a useful technique that we can employ in
the next chapter.
Method Six:  A Breathing Technique
Here is a simple technique, taken from yoga, that
anyone can use, but most people won't because they think
they are too busy.  All you need to do is sit quietly,
in a comfortable place where you won't be disturbed, and
breathe in and out using a single nostril at a time.
I'll explain step by step.  Put your thumb on one side
of your nose, and put your forefinger on the other.
This allows you to block each nostril by pressing a
finger on the outside of that nostril.  Now, block the
right nostril and exhale.  Then, inhale.  Next, block
the left nostril and exhale, then inhale.  Keep doing
this back and forth, so you exhale and inhale with one
nostril and then the other.  If you keep this up for
about ten minutes (watch the clock), you will find
yourself nicely relaxed.  Don't breathe more deeply or
more often than you usually do.  Just breathe normally,
and relax.
Method Seven:  Progressive Relaxation
This is the classical method used by therapists who
treat phobias, such as the fear of flying.  The patient
sits in a comfortable chair, preferably a good recliner,
and the therapist asks the patient to think about each
part of the body, one part at a time, and to relax the
tense muscles.  You can start with your head and work
slowly down to your feet or vice versa.  The important
point is that you think of each and every part of your
body, and make sure the muscles are relaxed.  If you
find that you have some muscles that don't feel relaxed,
and don't seem to want to relax, there's a secret to
relaxing them.  Instead of trying harder to get them
relaxed, tense them up as hard as you can.  Keep the
muscle tensed for about ten seconds to get it fatigued,
and then let it relax.  If you follow this procedure,
you will get very relaxed.
Here is a list of the parts of your body arranged
in a good sequence for relaxation:
Scalp, forehead, eyes, face, neck, shoulders, upper
arms, lower arms, hands, fingers, chest, back, abdomen,
buttocks, thighs, calves, feet, and toes.
If you plan to use this technique, make yourself a sign.
Copy this list of body parts on a big piece of paper and
stick it up on the wall where you can see it from your
comfortable chair.  You might also write two reminders
on this sign:  "Relax" and "Tense and Hold."  Remember,
if you can't easily get your muscles to relax just by
thinking about them, tense the difficult muscles for
about ten seconds, and then let the tension just drain
out of them.  To make this technique really work, allow
yourself ten minutes of completely undisturbed private
time to practice it.


Chapter Ten:  Exercises Doing Things

Systematic desensitization is a popular
psychological treatment which we will now use to
diminish your fears of flying and of avoiding flying.
This treatment is based on a simple idea:  If you think
about, or do, the things that scare you, and if you
think about them or do them in a very gradual way--and
if it all takes place while you are relaxed--you will
lose your fear.  The key word here is gradual.
Obviously, if you feared flying, you would not be able
to stay relaxed if you were suddenly placed in a jet
fighter that was flying upside down.  However, if you,
in a relaxed state, were asked to just go and look at an
airliner, you would probably be able to remain relaxed.
Gradually, while in the relaxed state, you would be able
to do things that got you closer and closer to flying.
If this were done carefully, you would ultimately be
able to fly while relaxed.
Systematic desensitization can treat a phobia using
either real or imaginary scenes.  When real scenes are
used, the patient does a series of things pertaining to
the phobia, all while in a relaxed state.  When
imaginary scenes are used, the patient does nothing but
imagine things pertaining to the phobia while in a
relaxed state.
Real scenes could readily be used, for example, to
treat someone for a fear of riding in elevators.  First
the person would be trained in one of the relaxation
methods we discussed in the last chapter.  Then, while
in the relaxed state, the person would be brought to an
elevator with the doors closed and asked to stand
outside it.  The person and the psychologist would spend
a fair amount of time ensuring that the person learns to
remain relaxed while standing outside an elevator with
the doors closed.  The next step would be for the person
to stand outside the elevator with the doors open.
Next, the person would get in the elevator for ten
seconds with the doors open.  Then the time would be
lengthened to 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and so on, until
the person could comfortably stand in an elevator for an
unlimited period of time while remaining relaxed.  The
next step would be to build up the person's tolerance
for standing in an elevator with the doors closed.  As
before, the person would be gradually subjected to
longer periods of time with the doors closed.
Ultimately, the person would feel comfortable in the
elevator with the doors closed for an indefinite period
of time.  Once this has been accomplished, the person
would work on riding the elevator a little.  First the
person would go up a floor, then two floors, and so on.
At every step along the way, the psychologist treating
the person would help the person remain relaxed, and the
psychologist would ensure that the person didn't try to
bite off more than he could chew, as many people force
themselves to do too much at once when they are trying
to overcome a fear.  When treatment is finally
completed, the person would have no fear of elevators.
Other fears can be treated with imaginary scenes.
To do this, the patient gets relaxed in a very
comfortable reclining chair in the psychologist's
office.  Once the patient is relaxed, the patient can be
asked to imagine the things that are scary, but this is
done in a very systematic way.  The things that scare
the patient are arranged on a list, called a hierarchy,
in order from the least scary to the most scary.  For
example, someone who is afraid of being in closed places
can first be asked to imagine places that are only a
little bit closed, like an escalator (which is closed
only on the sides), and little by little the person can
work up to imagining something that is really closed-in,
like a public toilet stall.  At each step of the way,
the person is encouraged to stay relaxed, and each step
is very small, so the person never has to make a big
jump from something that isn't very scary to something
that is.  If this is done right, the person can finally
imagine the scariest thing and still remain relaxed.
Research shows that people who can imagine things
while relaxed are very likely to be able to do the same
things and stay relaxed.  The advantage of the
"imagination method" over the "real life method" is that
the imagination method is much more flexible.  I can ask
a person to imagine two scenes on opposite sides of the
world within a few minutes, something that is not
possible in reality.  However, the real life method has
the advantage of realism--if you really did ride the
elevator successfully, then you really are cured.  The
imagination method always has the acid test after
treatment is over.  The psychologist and the patient
don't know until the acid test how well treatment has
succeeded.  If you feared flying, the acid test would be
to actually get on the plane and fly.  Fortunately, if
the person can relax while the scary scenes are
imagined, there is a very strong likelihood that the
person will relax in real life too.
This chapter will teach you how to relax about
flying and not-flying.  It will combine the relaxation
methods you learned in the last chapter with real
situations involving flying and not-flying.  The next
chapter shows you how to decrease your fear with
imaginary scenes involving flying.
Relaxing With Real Situations
Here are some real situations, having to do with
flying and not-flying, that you can experience while
relaxed.  If you do these exercises, you will benefit by
gradually feeling less afraid.  Remember, any time you
can be around airplanes, airports, or other things that
remind you of flying, while staying relaxed, you are
making progress towards solving your fear of flying, and
anytime you can avoid flying, with a sense of complete
relaxation, you are making progress towards solving your
fear of not-flying.
    Assignment
One:  Watching People Fly
This assignment involves watching people flying
while you remain relaxed.  It will help you think of
flying as a more relaxed and pleasant experience.  For
this assignment, you need two things.  First, you need
to have a relaxation technique that is portable.
Portable means a technique that you can use while
sitting in your car, standing outdoors, or sitting in a
public place.  For this assignment, you will not be able
to use the technique of taking a hot bath or doing
vigorous exercise.  You will be able to use the
technique of alternate nostril breathing, meditation, or
Progressive Relaxation.  If you are not sure which one
to use, keep in mind that psychologists, like myself,
prefer to use Progressive Relaxation.  It has the
advantage of being easy to do, it requires no equipment,
and doing it doesn't make you look foolish to
bystanders.
Now here is what you do.  Go to your local
metropolitan airport.  This should be the same airport
that you would be using if you were planning to fly
somewhere.  Drive to the airport, and park your car in
the airport parking lot.  This is the same thing you
would do if you were taking a flight.  After you park
your car, remain in your car and do the relaxation
technique that you have practiced at home.  Get yourself
relaxed.  Once you are good and relaxed, you may leave
your car and walk into the terminal.  Now have a seat in
the terminal.  Sit somewhere near the ticket counter,
and just watch people checking in for their flights.
Use your relaxation technique to make sure that you are
relaxed.  Sit there for at least ten minutes.
When you have done this, it is time to move.  Find
the baggage claim area, and go take a seat near it.
Again use your relaxation technique to make sure that
you are relaxed.  Sit and watch the people who have just
gotten off airplanes.  Notice the people who look the
happiest and the most relaxed.  Do this for at least ten
minutes.
Now for the finale.  Ask someone at an information
booth to direct you to the observation area.  The
observation area is a place where you can watch
airplanes from the time they leave the boarding area, to
the time they take off.  At some large airports, like
San Francisco International, you can observe this sort
of thing from just about anywhere in the terminal,
through large windows.  You can see people walking
through the boarding ramps and onto the planes.  You can
watch the planes move away from the gate, and you can
watch the planes takeoff and land.  You can follow the
same plane from landing to parking, and you can even see
the passengers coming off the plane.  Watching this
process is very useful for you because it puts the image
in your mind of airplanes actually doing what they are
supposed to do.  You may have begun this treatment
program with images of planes crashing or other bad
things happening, but his exercise will replace those
bad images with good ones.  Now it is crucial, as you
watch these airplane operations, for you to use your
relaxation technique.  By doing so, you will associate,
in your body and mind, the good feelings of relaxation
with airport operations.  Airports and airplanes will
become associated with a good feeling.  This is a very
important exercise, so you should do if for at least 30
minutes.  Make sure that your observations include
airplanes landing, taking off, arriving at the gate, and
leaving the gate.  You might also notice the box shaped
trucks that park themselves right up against the
airliners at the gate.  These are catering trucks, and
they are delivering meals.  Be aware of your muscle
tension as you observe.  If you find your muscles
getting tense, use the Progressive Relaxation technique
to relax them.  At the end of the 30 minutes, you may
leave.  Just for fun, reward yourself at an airport
snack bar.  Treat yourself to an ice cream sundae, or
whatever you happen to like.  Airports are changing.  At
O'Hare Airport in Chicago I discovered some of the best
ice cream and gelato I've seen anywhere, and at San
Francisco International I found an incomparable oyster
bar.  After your treat, the exercise is completed.  Get
in your car and drive home.
Assignment Two:  Watching Planes Fly
Assignment One was a view of flying from inside the
airport.  The next assignment is a view of flying that
is more dramatic.  This is the assignment that puts
images in your mind which prove that airplanes can fly,
and it combines this with a sense of the power that
airplanes really have.  This assignment involves a close
up view of airplanes either taking off or landing.  Not
everyone can do this assignment because you need to have
a special place at your airport where people can park
their cars near the end of a runway.  Almost every
airport has a place like this, but you have to find it.
If you need help finding it, you might try telephoning
your airport manager.  The airport manager may listed in
the phone book under the heading of Your Town Airport.
Or, you may need to call your airport's main phone
number and ask to be connected.  Tell the airport
manager that you are looking for a place where you can
park your car and observe airplanes landing or departing
near the end of a runway.  Many airports have official
observation areas where you can do this.  Others have
unofficial ones.
Once you have located the parking area, drive there
and park.  Spend as much time as you need to getting
accustomed to the sound of the airliners' engines.  You
may need to close your eyes and use the relaxation
technique quite a bit before you can relax around such
loud noises.  After you have successfully relaxed, open
your eyes, and start watching takeoffs or landings,
depending on which you can see better.
Here is what to observe.  If you are watching
landings, try to put yourself in a position so the
airplanes are flying right over your head.  At San Jose
International Airport, I can watch airplanes from an
airport service road.  The jets pass over my head at an
altitude of about 200 feet or less!  You will see the
planes as they come towards the runway making slight
course corrections right up to the point of touchdown.
The wings will tip or rock as the pilot fights the wind
and keeps the plane lined up with the runway.  The more
windy a day you have chosen, the more course corrections
you will see.  If there is a prevailing cross wind, a
wind blowing from the side of the runway, you may notice
planes flying with one wing lower than the other.  In a
crosswind, the wheels on the side of the lower wing will
hit the runway first.  Get yourself used to the sights
and sounds of airplanes landing, and use your relaxation
technique as many times as you need to.
If you are watching takeoffs, the first thing you
are likely to notice is how much waiting the planes do
near the runway.  After the waiting period, which can
range from a no time at all to many minutes, you will
see the airplane move onto the runway.  It may stop when
it first moves onto the runway, but it may not.
Sometimes the pilot just pushes the throttles foward and
takes right off.  Takeoff is noisy and exciting.  Stay
relaxed, and use the relaxation technique.
To do this assignment right, you should spend at
least 30 minutes at it.  Count the airplanes, notice the
different paint jobs and names of the airlines.  If you
have managed to stay relaxed, you will have made good
progress.  You will have combined the good feelings of
relaxation with images of airplanes doing what they do
best--flying.
Assignment Three:  Visiting a Travel Agent
This assignment is called a "rehearsal exercise."
It is a psychological technique of getting you prepared,
in a relaxed state, to do something that might
ordinarily make you nervous.  However, it should not
make you nervous now because you are only rehearsing or
pretending.  The job here is to visit a travel agent.
Give yourself a make-believe destination, and go to the
travel agent to learn all about actually going to your
destination.  Decide whether you will be taking your
make-believe trip for business or pleasure and how long
you will be staying.  What you know, and your travel
agent doesn't know, is that you are just practicing or
rehearsing.  You actually have no intention, at this
moment at least, of going anywhere.  This exercise will
give you the experiences of actually beginning an
airplane flight, but without the anxiety, since it is
just pretend.
Here is how to do it.  Before you set out, pick
your destination.  Do you want to pretend to plan a trip
to Tahiti, Hawaii, New York, or Paris?  When do you want
to go?  How long do you want to stay?  Then pick a
travel agency out of the phone book.  Call first, and
explain that you would like to pay a visit to the agency
to discuss a trip.  Ask for a convenient time to visit,
and, if possible, get the name of the travel agent you
will be talking to.  Remember, the only purpose of this
visit is to gather information.  You can tell the travel
agent right at the start that you will not be buying any
tickets today, and you will not be making any firm
plans.  Your purpose is only to do research.
When you arrive at the travel agency, you should
sit in your car for a few minutes and get relaxed using
Progressive Relaxation.  When you are feeling nice and
relaxed, you may then go into the agency and begin.
Since you are pretending that you are preparing for a
trip, you should ask all the questions you would be
asking if you really were going somewhere.  How much is
the airfare?  Can you get a discount by traveling on a
certain day of the week, or at a certain time of month?
What airline will you be using, and how long will you
actually be in the air?  Will you be changing planes?
Are there any packages that include hotel
accommodations?  What about ground transportation when
you arrive?  Will you have to rent a car, or will you be
taking taxicabs?  Learn it all, and write notes.  When
you have found out everything you need to know, and have
gathered plenty of color brochures, you may leave.
Thank the travel agent for taking the time with you, and
let it be known that you will be getting in touch after
you make your decision.
Assignment Four:  Avoiding Flight With Pride
The last three assignments were about flying.  This
assignment is about not-flying.  The purpose of this
assignment is to help you get more freedom to make
choices about flying.  The last thing you want is to
force yourself to fly because you feel pressured to.
You want to be free to say "no" to flying whenever you
want, and to whomever you want.  Like the previous
assignment, this one is a rehearsal or practice
assignment.  You will not really be doing anything.
Instead, you will be saying you are doing something just
to get the feel of it.
This assignment is very simple.  Here is what you
do.  During the next week, find a way to tell three
people that you have chosen not to fly anymore.  You
can't tell just any three people; it is important that
these are people who have nothing to gain or lose
themselves if you fly.  Therefore, do not choose spouses
or other family members or business associates to use
for this assignment.  Choose people whose lives are
separate enough from yours that your flying or not will
not help or hurt them.  Just work it into the
conversation.  For example, if your friend is talking
about taking a flying trip, you might just mention, "Oh,
that sounds nice for you, but I've decided I just don't
enjoy flying, and I don't plan to fly anymore."  You
needn't explain or apologize beyond saying that it is
your personal preference.  Don't get caught up in
statistical arguments about whether flying is safe or
not.  You might even say that you know it is safe, but
that you just have no interest in doing it because you
find it unpleasant.
Of course, this may not be true.  You may not
really know whether you are flying or not in the future.
The purpose of this assignment is to get you over the
idea that refusing to fly is somehow shameful, or a
weakness.  When you are actually telling the other
person that you are through with flying, try to stay
relaxed, and especially, try not to act sheepish.  Think
of it as an acting lesson.  Imagine you are in an acting
class, and your class has been given the assignment to
act unashamed of being a flight-refuser.  When you have
completed the exercise, congratulate yourself.  You have
managed to act unshamed of making a free choice that is
your own business and no one else's.



Chapter Eleven:  Exercises Involving Imagination

In the last chapter you did things while relaxed to
change your feelings about airplanes and flying.  Doing
these things will prove to be very helpful for you.
However, there is only so much you can accomplish using
the real life treatment method.  Some of your self-
treatment will use imagination instead of real life.
Since it is very important that you stay relaxed while
you are experiencing the flying situations, we have to
be able quickly to get you in and out of some situations
before you get tense.  Some situations will be
comfortable, at first, for only a brief period of time.
Later, you will find yourself comfortable in those same
situations for longer and longer spans of time.  Only
the imagination method will allow us to expose you to
situations very briefly.  It gives us much greater
control than we could possibly have were we to use only
real life situations.
When the imagination technique is used for flight
fear, you are helped to relax and to imagine a series of
images, step by step, about flying.  When you have
developed the ability to stay relaxed for all the easier
images, you will be ready to imagine yourself in an
airliner that is flying.  Since it is only imagination,
rather than reality, you will be able to "be" in this
airplane for only ten seconds, if that is what we want.
Gradually, you can imagine yourself in the airplane for
20 seconds, then 30 seconds, and so on.  Obviously, this
is not something we could possibly do in real life.  In
real life, the briefest airplane flight we can put you
on lasts about ten minutes.  This may be too long for
someone who is just beginning to work on overcoming a
fear.  Imaginary scenes, unlike real ones, can be as
brief as we want them to be.
Imaginary scenes have another advantage over real
life ones.  In real life, certain things always have to
happen in a certain order.  If you are to experience an
airplane flight, you must first experience boarding the
airplane, then taxiing, then taking off, then turning,
then level flight, then landing, and, finally, taxiing
to the gate.  This is the only order in which these
things can possibly take place.  You cannot put someone
in an airplane that is about to land before putting that
person in an airplane that is cruising along.  In real
life, certain aspects of flying must take place before
others.  However, for the purposes of systematic
desensitization, we do not necessarily want things to
happen in their real-life sequence.  Instead, we want
things to happen in the sequence of the less scary thing
always coming before the more scary thing.  For example,
many people find that being in an airplane that is
flying a few feet above the runway just before landing
is a relatively comfortable experience.  They find it
much more comfortable than being in an airplane that is
in level, cruise flight.  They feel comforted by the
knowledge that they will be landing very soon.
Fortunately, we can use imaginary scenes, and we can
have complete control over the sequence of scenes that
the person experiences.  We can have the person imagine
landing before taking off, and flying high before flying
low, and anything else we want.  When we use imaginary
scenes, we gain in flexibility what we lose in realism.
Both techniques, using real scenes and using imaginary
ones have their advantages.
Exercise One:  A Standard Flying Hierarchy
When I treat people in my office, I design a
customized list of their fears.  This list is called a
desensitization hierarchy.  Research has shown, though,
that we do not really need to use customized lists.  We
can do quite well using standard lists.  A standard list
is one that has the relevant images, in this case images
about flying, arranged in an order that fits most
people.  Remember, the proper order is to have the least
scary images come first, with the more scary images
following.  The list should go from least scary to most
scary, with each new image being just a little bit more
difficult than the last.
Here is a standard list of images for someone who
is nervous about flying.  Look at the list, and then I
will explain what we will do with it.
A List of Images About Flying;
1.  You are waking up in the morning.  You look at
a calendar and realize that your plane flight is in
two months.
2.  You waking up in the morning a week before the
day of your planned plane flight.
3.  You are waking up on the morning of your
flight.
4.  You are leaving for the airport on the morning
of your flight.
5.  You have finished your airplane flight.  You
are in the airplane as it taxis to the gate after
landing.
6.  You are in the airplane on the runway.  It has
just landed.
7.  You are flying over the runway, five seconds
before landing.
8.  You are walking into the airplane, ready to
take your seat for a half-hour flight.
9.  You are walking into the airplane, ready to
take your seat for an hour flight.
10.  You are walking into the airplane, ready to
take your seat for a four hour flight.
11.  You are in flight, cruising along in perfectly
smooth air.  The flight attendant has just served
your meal.  Imagine that it is your favorite food.
12.  You are in the airplane, taxiing towards the
runway for takeoff.
13.  The airplane is beginning its takeoff roll.
You hear the engines get loud.
14. The airplane lifts off the ground as it takes
off.  You can hear the noises of the landing hear
retracting.  It sounds like a whirring followed by
several loud knocks.
15.  After takeoff, the airplane enters a gentle
turn to the right.
16.  You are flying at night, in clouds.  The
flight is smooth, but you can't see anything out
the windows.
17.  You are flying through some turbulence during
the daytime.  It feels the same as driving on a
bumpy road.
18.  You are flying through some turbulence at
night.  It feels like driving on a bumpy road.  You
cannot see anything but black out of the windows.
Using the List
Now that you have seen the list, here is what we
will do with it.  Each of the scenes on the list is
something that you will soon be asked to imagine.
However, and this is very very important, you should
only imagine these scenes while you are relaxed.  If you
have not succeeded at getting relaxed, or staying
relaxed, I do not want you to imagine the scenes.
Follow these steps:
1.  Relax: Use your favorite relaxation method to
get relaxed.  If you wish, you can begin by taking a hot
bath, doing vigorous exercise, or meditating, if these
are things that you have found useful.  You can also use
the breathing technique or Progressive Relaxation.  You
must do this at a time and in a place so that you will
not be disturbed.  Turn off your telephone.
2.  Picture:  After you have gotten relaxed, gently
take the book in your hand and read the first item on
the list.  Be careful to pick up the book carefully, so
you do not get your muscles tense.  Read the first item,
and picture it for about ten seconds.  Then stop
picturing it, and relax.
Here is an important tip about picturing these
scenes.  Picture them in the most favorable possible
way.  What I mean is this:  Ordinarily, when you picture
scenes about flying, you probably picture them in a
rather negative way.  You do this because you are afraid
of flying and because you don't like flying.  Your
negative feelings about flying probably contaminate your
mental images of it.  This could make you have mental
images, or pictures in your mind, about flying that are
downright ugly.  When you pictured an airport, for
example, you might have pictured an aged terminal
building populated by ugly, unpleasant people.  Or, you
might have imagined you are at the airport because you
need to go to someone's funeral, and you may have
pictured yourself flying on an old airplane with a soot
covered and oil streaked paint job, flown by aged
alcoholic pilots in shabby uniforms.  It will not do you
any good to picture such ugly scenes as you do these
exercises.  You must, instead, concentrate on picturing
as positive scenes as you can.  For example, when you
need to picture an airplane, make it a brand spanking
new airplane, with a beautiful paint job in your
favorite color, an impeccable interior, and very
pleasant, attractive passengers and crew.  When you need
to picture an airport, picture a beautiful airport,
clean and modern, filled with attractive people whom you
would like to know.  When you need to picture the
runway, make it a runway in a beautiful location, a
tropical island, or your favorite vacation spot, with
plenty of native flowers growing along side it.
Finally, when you need to imagine a flight somewhere,
let it be your dream flight to your favorite destination
in the whole world.  Remember, this is all imaginary,
and you can create whatever imaginary world you want.
Make it a world that is better than the real world.
Improve upon the real world.  Do what it takes so you
will picture flying in a very favorable light.  If you
can do this, you will benefit even more from these
scenes.
3.  Daydream:  After you have finished picturing an
item, let your mind wander to a beautiful and gratifying
daydream.  Imagine that you are relaxing on the beach at
Maui, or picnicking at your favorite park, or eating at
your favorite restaurant.  Imagine anything that you
find particularly pleasant and calming.  Let yourself do
this for about a minute.
4.  Picture Again:  Now go back, and picture item
number one again for ten seconds.  When ten seconds has
passed, let your mind again wander to the pleasant
scene, or to a new pleasant scene of your choosing.
Daydream Again
5.  Picture Next:  Now go on to item number two.
While relaxed, picture item number two for about ten
seconds.  When ten seconds has passed, let your mind
wander to the pleasant daydream of your choice, and just
relax for about a minute.  Daydream Again  Check your
watch to be sure you are allowing a full minute of
relaxation.  Then, imagine item number two, again, for
about ten seconds.  Picture Again
6.  Use this same basic procedure for the rest of
the items.  Relax, picture, daydream, picture again,
daydream again, picture next.  Visualize, when relaxed,
for about ten seconds.  If any of the items makes you
tense, stop visualizing it, and fall back on your
pleasant daydream.  Only visualize the items that you
can visualize while relaxed.  If you get to a stubborn
item, one that you absolutely cannot visualize while
relaxed, skip it, and come back to it later.  If you run
into a string of stubborn items, then you must use
progressive relaxation to get yourself more relaxed than
you already are.  Also, be patient.  Work with the easy
items some more before trying the more difficult ones.
When you have succeeded at picturing the entire list for
ten seconds, go back and picture each item on the list
for 20 seconds.  When you can do that, picture each item
on the list again for 30 seconds each.
What If You Can't Stay Relaxed?
What will you do if you can't picture these items
and stay relaxed?  Well, first off, you might have to
face the possibility that your problem with flying is
too severe to be helped by this book.  This is a very
real possibility.  After all, there are some people-
including my failure cases-who have barely been able to
get on an airplane even after being treated with
systematic desensitization, and being filled with enough
tranquilizers to put any self respecting elephant to
sleep.  Not everyone can benefit from even the best
psychological treatment, let alone a self-help book.
This book has techniques that will assist people with
moderate flight anxiety, but it will not help everyone.
You may need to see a psychologist to get professional
help with your problem.
If you like, you can proceed with visualizing the
images even if you can't relax.  There is evidence that
doing that will help you anyway.  You can change the
rules of the assignment, and just visualize the images
regardless of whether you feel relaxed or not.  This
will give you mental rehearsal for being in the
situation that you usually avoid, and that can be
helpful.  In fact, some therapists make a very good
argument for why you should visualize these images even
if they make you nervous.  They say that phobic people
tend to avoid that which makes them nervous.  One
solution to a phobia is simply to stop avoiding even if
you can't stop being nervous.  If you fear flying, for
example, you may have avoided flying because it makes
you nervous.  However, if you can learn to accept your
anxious feelings, you can fly despite feeling nervous.
You can work on this with the list of images in this
chapter.  Ordinarily, when something makes you nervous,
you consider that a very bad experience, and you avoid
it.  Now, you can read the list and picture these scenes
about flying, and let yourself feel nervous.  Instead of
telling yourself, "I feel nervous, so I will run away
from this," you can tell yourself, "I feel nervous, and
I will tolerate that.  I will not let the feeling of
nervousness dominate my life."  Perhaps if you can
tolerate picturing scenes that make you nervous, you
will also be able to tolerate really being in those same
scenes.

Exercise Two:  A Desensitization Hierarchy for
Fear of Not Flying
Throughout this book I have focused on the two
fears that are related to flight anxiety.  One is the
fear of flying itself, and the other is the fear of all
the bad things you think would happen if you avoided
flying.  We have worked on the first fear; now it is
time to work on the second.  What do people fear about
avoiding flying?  Here is a desensitization hierarchy
that I made up based on what my patients have taught me.
It is a list of the most common fears having to do with
avoiding, or saying "no," to flying.  Generally, the
scenes on this list are about feeling humiliated and
being the center of the scornful attention of others.
This list will be used, like the one for flying, as
part of a desensitization program.  Remember, it is best
to remain relaxed at all times-even if someone is
insulting you.  If you have excessive fear of people's
insults, then you are destined to live your life
enslaved to the preferences and biases of others.  I
think you should strive to allow people to think what
they want to think of you, even allowing them to
completely disapprove of you, and you should still be
able to follow your own path.  Perhaps, in real life, if
you got insulted the way these scenes portray, you would
become infuriated and fight back.  That is good, and I
approve.  However, for our purposes right now, I only
want you to be relaxed in these scenes.  Don't worry
that learning to relax in conjunction with these scenes
might turn you into a defenseless doormat.  It won't.
In fact, in real life the more relaxed you are, the
better you will be able to think up insults when someone
puts you down.  No insults now, though, just relax.
As you envision the scenes in the list that
follows, you may think that these are ridiculous
situations that are so humiliating that you would just
die if you were ever in such a predicament.  However, it
is important that you come to terms with the kind of
situations that are in this list, even though you will
probably never encounter them.  Your goal, as you
visualize these scenes, is to remain relaxed.  Just let
the scene happen.  Let the imaginary people around you
think what they wish, while you remain relaxed.
A List of Images About Social Disapproval and
Humiliation
1.  You are talking to a complete stranger whom you
happened to meet.  The subject gets around to flying,
and you reveal that you don't like to fly.  The stranger
reacts with acceptance.  He says, "I don't like to fly
myself."
2.  You are talking to a compete stranger, and you
reveal that you don't like to fly.  The stranger reacts
with slight disapproval.  He says, while lifting an
eyebrow, "Isn't that a rather restricted way to live?"
3.  You are talking to a complete stranger, and you
reveal that you don't like to fly.  The stranger reacts
with disapproval.  He says, "You are a weak person.  You
should make yourself fly.  You must not give in to such
a neurotic fear."
4.  You are waiting in line at the supermarket.
Your neighbor from down the street happens to be in line
next to you, and you get into a conversation about
vacation plans.  You reveal that you are afraid of
flying.  Your neighbor ridicules you in front of
everyone else in line.  Two other shoppers appear to be
smirking at you.
5.  You are at church.  The minister is delivering
the sermon and is talking about fear.  He says, angrily,
that some people let fears dominate their lives.
Several members of the congregation, who are aware of
your fear of flying, turn around and look at you with
sneers on their faces.
6.  You are in an airport, at the gate, standing in
line and waiting to board your flight.  The line finally
starts to move as people begin to enter the airplane.
You change your mind about getting on board.  You walk
away from the boarding area.  At least ten people watch
you walk away.  They are talking among themselves, and
you hear the words "chicken" and "scaredycat."
7.  You are sitting on board and airplane that is
beginning to move away from the gate.  Just then, you
make the decision not to fly.  You call the flight
attendant and insist on being allowed to leave the
plane.  The flight attendant tells you it is impossible.
You keep insisting, and all the nearby passengers watch
the argument.  You are the center of attention.  The
other passengers are angry at you because, if you are
allowed to leave the plane, their flight will be
delayed.  One passenger shouts out to you, "Shut up."
Using the List
Although these items are different from the list of
flying images, both lists are used in the same way.
Both lists involve scenes that you should imagine while
you are feeling very relaxed, and you should stay
relaxed while picturing them.  Review the instructions
above that you have already used for the "List of Images
About Flying."  The same instructions should be applied
for this list.  Basically, you will first get relaxed
using a relaxation technique.  Then you will picture the
first scene on the list for about ten seconds.  Then you
will stop picturing the scene, and just relax.  Then you
will picture your favorite daydream, and then you will
go back to the list.  Read the instructions over again
to get the details right.  Remember to relax, picture,
daydream, picture again, daydream again, and picture
next.



Chapter Twelve:  Where Do You Go From Here?

If you have been a diligent reader of this book,
you have now completed all the real and imaginary
exercises.  Where does that leave you?  Actually, it is
hard to say.  Most people feel better about themselves
when they have managed to picture the scary scenes
without anxiety.  Also, by reading this book, you may
have learned a great deal about flying and about
yourself.  You may have even gotten some new ideas that
will help you have a better life.  Nevertheless, if you
want to fly, you won't know how that will turn out until
you try.  So that gets us to the question of what to do
next.
Quit Flying
There are several steps you could take next.  If
you have decided, after reading this, that flying is not
for you and that you will not allow yourself to continue
to be pressured by those who want you to fly, you may
decide to take the necessary steps to remove flying from
your life.  This may mean putting your foot down with
your family or your boss, and then having to live with
the consequences.  You could end up with a different
job, or with no job, with a different marriage, or with
no marriage.  Change is risky, but you may still decide
to go for it.  Hopefully, after reading this book you
will no longer condemn yourself for not flying.  Even if
you change nothing in your life, if you now like
yourself better you have changed in an important way.
Go Flying
If you have decided to fly, the next step is easy.
Plan your trip, order your tickets, and go.  You might,
however, be unsure of yourself.  You may want to fly,
but also be worried about how big a strain that will
prove to be.  One solution is to book a ticket on a
short flight, just as an experiment.  For example, there
are flights I have taken on genuine, full-sized jet
airliners from Oakland to San Francisco, from Oakland to
Monterey, from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale, or
from Fort Lauderdale to Miami.  Some of these flights
have been so short that the plane only climbed to 2000
feet between one airport and the next.  These flights
have lasted only about ten minutes or so.  If you would
like to get your feet wet on such a short flight, talk
to a travel agent and find out what is available.  You
could even arrange to have a friend or your spouse pick
you up at the destination and drive you back.  Or, you
could make a vacation out of it and stay overnight at
the nearby destination city.  Taking a flight like this
would allow you to expose yourself to flying in a very
limited way.  The flight is short, and, if you are
familiar with your local geography, you will probably
know where you are while airborne at every moment.  The
enroute and destination weather will hold not surprises,
since it will undoubtedly be the same as the weather at
your departure airport.
If you feel more confident about flying, you might
actually book some tickets on a longer flight, maybe to
a destination you couldn't reach without flying.  You
might visit Hawaii, Europe, Asia or the Caribbean.  A
flight like that would be more of an undertaking than a
local one.  You would be in the air for hours, and you
might have to deal with a strange new environment upon
arrival.  If you chose to take this step, you may want
to follow my advice about getting a tranquilizer from a
physician to have along as a chemical security blanket.
I don't recommend tranquilizers for everyone, but if you
think it would make a difference for you, why not try
it?
Further Treatment
After reading this book, some people will want to
fly but will still feel too fearful.  These people still
need psychological treatment.  Perhaps this book will
have given you enough understanding of how psychological
treatment works that you will now be ready to try it.
If so, reading this book will have accomplished
something useful:  It will have given you a head start.
To find a therapist for this problem, look in your
Yellow Pages under "Psychologists."  See if there is a
listing for a local psychological association.  Call
them up, and get the names of psychologists who do
systematic desensitization.  Then, call these
psychologists and find out whether they have experience
treating phobias, especially fear of flying.  Expect to
pay around $100 per session, and expect treatment to
require about ten sessions.
On the subject of further treatment, I should warn
you that sometimes things can get more complicated than
you expected.  For example, if there is a marital power-
struggle over whether or not you will fly, fear of
flying could turn out to be only the tip of the iceberg.
There could be more serious, underlying marital problems
that have been deflected into battles about whether you
will fly.  Treatment for your flying problem could lead
to marital therapy.  Similarly, if flying is an issue on
your job, psychological treatment could end up focusing
on your feelings about your job, and it could raise the
question of whether this job is meeting your needs.
Maybe seeking further treatment amounts to opening
Pandora's Box, but remember, one of the things that was
in Pandora's Box was Hope.
Have You Failed?
What if you have read this book, and have not ended
up flying, not-flying, or even deciding to seek further
treatment?  Does that mean you have simply wasted your
time?  I doubt it.  If you have read the entire book,
you have been exposed to many new ideas.  Some ideas may
have helped you, and some may not have.  Nevertheless,
you have not wasted your time.  You have been thinking.
Mentally, you have rehearsed a variety of things ranging
from arguing with those who would make you fly, to
flying itself.  You have thought about the whole
enterprise of flying and whether you want to choose to
participate in it.  All the thinking you have done has
changed you.  Possibly, it will send you in a new
direction in the future, no one can know.  Psychological
change and growth is unpredictable.  That is why I don't
simply treat people for fear of flying.  People are
complicated, unique, unpredictable and changeable, and I
often have a difficult time figuring out what a person
really needs to change to make his or her life better.
Sometimes, people need to spend some time just letting
new ideas percolate before they find the direction they
want to go in.  You may decide in a year that you are
ready to enter therapy, or to fly, or to quit flying
forever.  Whatever you decide, whenever you decide,
concentrate on making it a decision that is right for
you.



Afterward:  Was This Book Good for You?

The other day, I was talking to a colleague who is
a behavior therapist, someone who uses psychological
methods to help people overcome their fears.  I told her
that I was working on a book on flight fear, and that I
was focusing on freeing people from the pressure to fly.
I said I wanted to help people fly, but I also wanted
them to feel freer not to fly.
My colleague reacted to my idea with anger, and she
practically accused me of unethical practice.  She
argued that people come to me for help specifically
because they seek a cure for flight fear.  She said I
have no business telling them to consider not flying.
She accused me of encouraging people who are already
scared to let fears dominate their lives.  After all,
she said, there is so much of the world to see if you
fly,  and most people don't have the time to go to Paris
by ship, or to New York by car or train.  She said I am
obligated, when someone comes to me seeking a cure for a
phobia, to do everything possible to cure that phobia.
I replied that I was doing everything possible to cure
phobias.  I insisted that a person can't hope to
overcome a phobia until that person feels completely
free to avoid what is feared.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid
what I said fell on deaf ears.
We never did finish our discussion, but I realized
that I had to reply to her accusation.  Many readers
will undoubtedly think the same thing my colleague did;
they will think I am trying to snivel out of my
responsibility to cure flight fear by simply telling
people it's OK to keep their flight fear.  They will
think that I am some kind of California-New Age-Pseudo-
Zen trickster who sidesteps people's problems by saying,
"You're already perfect the way you are."
Are You Perfect The Way You Are?
The crux of the matter is whether I think flight-
fearful people are really perfect, or even OK, the way
they are.  Do they merely need my blessing to allow them
to stay phobic and stop trying to fly?  Will that make
them feel better?  Yes, but not completely better.
However, this is a very subtle point, and it obviously
got lost on my colleague.  I am not trying to say that
flight phobic people have no problem; they do have a
problem.  In fact, I am trying to say that they have two
problems.  The first problem is that flying makes them
uncomfortable.  The second problem is that, for some
reason, they are trying to make themselves fly anyway.
Often, after getting to know a patient, I realize that
the second problem is much greater than the first.
Look at it this way.  Many people have different
things that they feel uncomfortable about, and they
avoid these things.  Many people don't dance, for
example, or don't go to the opera or stand on high
ledges.  These people are not generally considered
"phobic" unless they go to a psychologist and ask for
treatment.  Once they do, though, they are sure to be
labeled "phobic," and the psychologist will try to
"cure" the phobia.  Anything that you avoid -- out of
fear -- can be construed as a phobia by a psychologist.
Believe it or not, I am currently treating a woman who
has a "phobia" of white water rafting.  For her, it is a
phobia because it is something she used to be able to
do, badly wants to do again, and she cannot remain in
her social circle without doing it.  I am treating her
for a phobia, despite the fact that most people are
probably too scared ever to run rapids in a rubber raft,
and most psychologists would not define that as a
problem.
Now consider someone who doesn't dance, who gets
very nervous out on the dance floor, and who imagines
that everyone is watching him look foolish, but who does
not believe he needs treatment.  Is he "phobic?"  No!
He may be somewhat unusual or eccentric, especially if
he is part of a social circle where everyone else
dances, but he is not "phobic" unless he seeks
treatment.
In general, people get labeled "phobic" when they
consider their dislike for something to be an illness
rather than a preference.  However, when someone labels
his fear of flying to be an "illness," I wonder what his
real problem is.  Is it that flying makes him nervous?
Or, is it that he thinks it shouldn't?
Consider the following two patients, both of whom
wanted me to label them "phobic."  A woman patient came
to me seeking help with her fear of flying.  As
treatment progressed, I began to get the impression that
this woman just did not want to fly.  When I questioned
her more carefully about her reasons for coming to see
me, I learned that she was under terrific pressure from
her husband to fly.  He wanted to bring her along on
business trips.  She didn't want to go to these business
trips at all -- she found them terribly boring,
regardless of whether flying was involved or not.  For
this woman, overcoming her fear of flying -- at this
point in her life -- meant being sentenced to an
eternity of boring business trips.  She was only doing
it for her husband, not for herself.
Or consider the case of a man who had to fly to
Europe.  He was terribly afraid of flying, and this
flight was supposed to last more than a day, including a
stopover in New York.  As I learned more about this man,
and his reason for flying, I began to have serious
doubts about whether he really wanted to make the trip.
Upon arrival at his destination, he had reason to expect
very nasty arguments with his wife's family about money.
In fact, the entire stay in Europe promised to be very
unpleasant.  It seemed clear to me that his fear of
flying was actually helping him, for the time being, by
protecting him from taking this horrible trip.  He felt
pressured, by his wife and her family, to take this
trip, but the fact was he did not want to.  I wondered
whether my treatment of him would have gone a lot faster
if the flight would have taken him to Florida, instead,
to play golf.
Everyone who is afraid of flying should take a
lesson from these two patients of mine, the "business-
trip wife" and the "money squabbles man."  These two
people were being pressured by their families to roll up
their sleeves and work on their fear of flying.  Both of
them quickly felt much better when I focused my
treatment on their real feelings about the trips they
were supposed to take.  They felt excited by the idea
that they did not have to fly.  I had offered them the
option of doing something unexpected with their phobia.
They came to me expecting to get rid of their phobia,
and get rid of it they did.  I had helped them transform
their phobia into a preference.  They no longer feared
flying.  Now, they simply did not want to fly, and they
specifically did not want to fly to the destinations
their spouses were sending them.
Were these two people "cured" when they asserted
their right not to fly?  Yes and no.  They were
definitely cured of one problem, the problem of feeling
they had to do what people wanted them to.  They began
to live in a more independent, assertive way.
Obviously, they were still not "cured" of their fear of
flying.  Curing fear of flying, though, was not relevant
to them -- yet.  After a while, when they are secure in
their right not to fly and not to get pressured by
family members into doing what they do not want, they
may decide to look at  their irrational fear of flying.
Once that happens, once they decide for themselves to
look at the problem, progress can be made.  Until then,
I consider these cases very successful.  These two
people are now psychologically free to avoid that which
makes them uncomfortable, and why shouldn't they?
So Was This Book Good for You?
You can see that it is not easy to answer the
question of whether this book was good for you.  You may
say it was bad for you.  You may say that it will only
encourage you to become complacent and allow fears to
dominate your life.   But, on the other hand, you may
say that this book encourages people to think about
their feelings and to live in ways that are consistent
with how they feel.  When you put it in these terms,
this book seems pretty helpful.
Actually, I do not think you really have to choose.
There are many cases of people who seek treatment for a
phobia only to have the treatment fail.  People
consistently refuse to do the "homework" that
psychologists give them, or they fail to show up for
appointments, or they come late.  I believe this
discusssion explains why some of these treatments fail.
Treatment fails when the patient's family, or the
psychologist, is ready for change but not the patient.
My aim here is to get the patient ready before treatment
begins.  When the patient's internal sense of who he or
she is says "I really want to do something, for myself,
about my fear of flying," then treatment can begin.
Until that time, treatment is bound to be unsuccessful.