November 14, 2009 | Consumer Goods, Technology

Combat Flying Fears with iPhone App

Virgin Atlantic is introducing an iPhone app to help airline passengers with their fear of flying, based on their popular “Flying Without Fear” program. The $4.99 app has already won the endorsement of Whoopi Goldberg, who claims that the product corrected her misunderstandings about the flight process: “The program works. I now fly. It’s that simple.”

The app guides the user through relaxation exercises and explains frequently asked questions in a video format. The program is designed to be used in the days leading up the flight, allowing plenty of time to address common concerns. During the flight, you can press a “Fear Attack” button that coaches you with tips and a breathing exercise.

There’s one caveat: Electronic devices can’t be used during takeoff or landing, or when the plane is below 10,000 feet. Frightened fliers may have to rely on the memory of the app at a time when they might experience the most concern.

AUTHOR: Annette Hulbert

One Response to “Combat Flying Fears with iPhone App”

Posted by Capt Tom Bunn LCSW on November 15th, 2009 at 5:15 PM

Dear Annette,

Thank you for being interested in the treatment of fear of flying.

Unfortunately, this app is based on the level of treatment used back in 1975 in the original fear of flying course offered by Pan Am, education about how flying works and breathing exercises.

I worked on that program and was appalled at the distress experienced by far too many of the course participants. The methods used worked only for people with mild difficulty.

Recent research shows why the results were poor. Though they work on the ground, breathing exercises – the only psychological aid the course offered – are completely useless for fear of flying. See: http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/13/25

Though this app and the course offered by Virgin can, as the Pan Am course did over thirty years ago, help people with mild flying problems, more advanced methods are required for people with a moderate to severe problem with flying.

Advanced methods are based on brain scan research that has shown us much about how the brain regulates emotion, in particular the work of Allan N. Schore, Ph.D., author of Affect Regulation. It is now clear than early relationship with the primary caregiver is key in forming the emotional sequences that we depend on for stability. When good-enough sequences were not established, increased emotional strength is needed in order to fly without distress.

This means the fear of flying client has to be taught how to build inside new sequences of emotion, sequences that start with the initiation of stress but instead of leading to greater stress, lead instead to less stress, and then to calm.

This kind of advanced help is available, but certainly not by an app or a course based on breathing exercises.