The fear of flying or aerophobia is a very common phobia in our society, being suffered by 20% of it. Can you imagine that you had to reject a job offer because it means having to travel, not being able to do a university Erasmus due to the fear of flying, or not being able to travel or visit a distant relative? This is what happens in people who are afraid of flying, who are limited by it. However, 98% of people who suffer from this phobia overcome it with the appropriate treatment.
Aerophobia is considered a phobic disorder, which is part of the so-called specific phobias. If you want to know more aspects about the Aerophobia or fear of flying: meaning, causes, symptoms and treatmentcontinue reading this Psychology-Online article.
Aerophobia: meaning
Aerophobia refers to specific or simple situational phobia consisting of fear to fly. A specific phobia is the appearance of an overwhelming, irrational fear of a phobic object or situation, in this case the airplane. Faced with this stimulus, the person who suffers from this phobia suffers high levels of anxiety, which can lead to physical and/or psychological reactions in the form of symptoms. In addition, it produces great limitations in the person’s daily life, in this case the limitation of movement due to the fear of flying. Aerophobia is not a mere fear of flying, as the vast majority of people may experience, it is the appearance of intense anxiety and fear.
Simple phobias are the most common anxiety disorders in our society; however, given their prevalence, many different proposals have been developed for their treatment and in most cases there is absolute remission of the disorder.
Aerophobia: causes
The causes that can develop this specific phobic disorder are diverse, although they all maintain a situational content. Aerophobia can appear through a direct traumatic experience or observation, due to cognitive biases or due to inheritance or information from family or close friends. Below, we explain these possible causes of aerophobia:
- Direct or observational experiences: The phobia can be caused as a result of a traumatic experience experienced, which has generated a negative connotation towards the airplane and a strong component of fear of it. However, it is not necessary for the person to have experienced said traumatic event to develop the disorder; it may have occurred through the observation of a foreign event.
- Cognitive biases: The beliefs that we establish regarding our environment play a fundamental role in establishing the phobic disorder. If one begins to think about the same thought, which indicates the danger of said vehicle, it can establish in one’s cognition an excessive and irrational concern, thus appearing the phobia.
- Inheritance or information from the family or close environment: there is currently no empirical validation that establishes that there is a genetic component that predisposes the development of a phobic disorder. However, several studies estimate its possibility. The option that the phobic behavior has been shared transgenerationally is superimposed, that is, that one or both parents have a fear of flying and transmit this fear to their children and they may end up developing aerophobia.
Aerophobia: symptoms
The symptoms presented by a specific phobic disorder appear when faced with the feared stimulus, thereby generating avoidance behavior towards the object or situation and a state of anticipatory anxiety appearing when the person is aware that they must be exposed to it. The symptoms of aerophobia are the following:
- Anxiety and anticipatory anxiety
- Catastrophic thoughts
- and panic
- Increased heart rate
- Sweating
- Tachycardia
- Feeling dizzy or vertigo
- Stomachache
- Tremors
- Nausea and vomiting
- Chest pain
- Breathing difficulties
- Chills or increased body temperature
Aerophobia: treatment
How to overcome aerophobia? The vast majority of specific phobias are treated from the exposure technique for being the most effective technique for its treatment. Which consists of the person gradually exposing themselves to the feared object or situation, creating hierarchies of situations that bring them closer to the final objective, built from least to greatest difficulty. Between each hierarchy, they are practiced, with the aim of reducing the anxiety caused by approaching the phobic stimulus.
However, the treatment of aerophobia is very complicated using this model. Establishing hierarchies of situations around the fear of flying is very difficult, due to limited access to air facilities. An example of a hierarchy for the treatment of aerophobia could be the following:
- Go see the planes take off
- Park at the airport
- Enter the airport
- Cross the security checkpoint
- Show boarding passes and documentation
- Get on the plane
- Take off
As we can see, it is not possible to implement this hierarchy because it implies having to leave the office every day (which would be the minimum limitation, since it is common in the treatment of phobias) and would entail a high economic cost, since that the person may require many repetitions of the same step in the hierarchy before being able to move to the next.
Faced with these difficulties, one of the great innovations in today’s psychotherapeutic processes was developed: intervention through virtual reality.
What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality (VR) is part of the emerging technologies of our times, ICTs (information and communication technologies). Virtual reality establishes a set of three-dimensional environments or situations, on which the person undergoing treatment has the possibility of enter the image and the sensations it produces, without the need to be physically present, generated the sensation of being in the “presence” of the simulated image. Furthermore, it allows a real time interaction with computer-generated environments and establishes virtual experiences tailored to the needs of each person.
The possibility of being able to recreate the sensation of being in a certain environment, without the need to be there, is of great importance, providing the possibility of making use of these contexts as therapeutic instruments to produce change in thoughts, behaviors, experiences and emotions in a given environment.
How to overcome the fear of flying through virtual reality?
It is not surprising that in recent times it has become one of the most widespread application techniques in the treatment of anxiety disorders, and in other clinical conditions. The possibility of being able to work with established hierarchies in a virtual environment, they lead to aerophobia being treated from a much more effective perspective and facilitating intervention for change.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Aragonès, E. (2013). Addressing phobias. FMC, 20, 347-350.
- Botella, C., García-Palacions, A., Quero, S., Baños, R., & Bertón-López, M. (2006). Virtual Reality and Psychological Treatments. Behavioral Psychology, 3, 491-510.
- Guitérrez, J. (2002). Applications of virtual reality in clinical psychology. Medical Classroom Psychiatry, 4(2), 92-126.
- Quero, S., Botella, C., Guillén, V., Moles, M., Nebot, S & García-Palacios, A. (2012). Monograph Article Virtual reality for the treatment of emotional disorders: a review. Yearbook of Clinical and Health Psychology, 8, 7-21.