AEROPHOBIA or fear of flying: Meaning, Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

The fear of flying or aerophobia is a very frequent phobia in our society, being suffered by 20% of it. Can you imagine that you had to reject a job offer because it implies having to travel, not being able to a university erasmus because of the fear of the plane or not being able to travel or visit a relative far? 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 ideal treatment.

Aerophobia is considered a phobic disorder, which is part of the so-called specific phobias. If you want to know more about the Aerophobia or fear of flying: meaning, causes, symptoms and treatment, keep reading this article on Psychology-Online.

Index

1. Aerophobia: meaning
2. Aerophobia: causes
3. Aerophobia: symptoms
4. Aerophobia: treatment
5. What is virtual reality?

Aerophobia refers to the specific or simple phobia of a situational type

Simple phobias are the most frequent anxiety disorders in our society, however due to their prevalence they have elaborated many different proposals for its treatment and in most cases there is an absolute remission of the disorder.

The causes that can develop this specific phobic disorder are diverse, although they all maintain a situational content. Aerophobia can appear through direct traumatic or observational experience, through cognitive biases, or through inheritance or information from the family or close range. Here are these possible causes of aerophobia:

• Direct or observational experiences: the phobia can be caused as a result of a traumatic experience, which has generated a negative connotation towards the plane and a strong component of fear of it. However, it is not necessary for the person to have experienced such a traumatic event to develop the disorder, it may have occurred by observing an alien event.
• Cognitive biases: the beliefs that we stipulate in front of our environment, play a fundamental role in the establishment of the phobic disorder. If one begins to spin around the same thought, which indicates the dangerousness of said vehicle, may establish in his cognition an inordinate and irrational preoccupation, thereby appearing the phobia.
• Inheritance or information of the family or near breast: there is no empirical validation at present 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 are afraid of flying and transmit this fear to their children and they may end up elaborating the aerophobia

The symptoms that present a specific phobic disorder appear before the feared stimulus, thereby generating a behavior of avoidance of the object or situation and a state of anticipatory anxiety appearing when the person is aware that he must be exposed to he. The symptoms of aerophobia are the following:

• Anxiety and anticipatory anxiety
• Catastrophic thoughts
• Afraid and panic
• Increased heart rate
• Sweating
• Tachycardia
• Feeling dizzy or dizzy
• Stomachache
• Tremors
• Nausea and vomiting
• Chest pain
• Trouble breathing
• Chills or increased body temperature

How to overcome aerophobia? The vast majority of specific phobias are treated from the cognitive behavioral treatment with 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 you closer to the final goal, built from least to greatest difficulty. Between each hierarchy are practiced relaxation techniques, with the aim of reducing the anxiety produced by approaching the phobic stimulus.

However, the treatment of aerophobia is very complicated using this model. Establishing hierarchies of situations around fear of flying is very difficult, due to the limited access to air facilities. An example of a hierarchy for the treatment of aerophobia could be the following:

1. Go see the planes take off
2. Park at the airport
3. Enter the airport
4. Go through the security check
5. Show boarding passes and documentation
6. Get into the plane
7. Take off

As we can see, it is not possible to execute this hierarchy because it implies having to exit the query every day (which would be the minimum limitation, since it is frequent in the treatment of phobias) and would entail a high economic cost, since it is possible that the person requires many repetitions of the same step in the hierarchy before being able to move on to the following.

Faced with these difficulties, one of the great novelties in today's psychotherapeutic processes was developed: intervention through 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 get into the image and the sensations it produces, without the need to be physically present, generated the sensation of being in "presence" of the simulated image. In addition, it allows a real-time interaction with the environments generated by the computer and establishes virtual experiences coupled to the needs of each person.

The possibility of being able to recreate the feeling of being in a certain environment, without the need If so, I glimpse a great importance providing the possibility of making use of these contexts What therapeutic tools to bring about change in the thoughts, behaviors, experiences and emotions in the 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, anxiety symptoms and in other clinical pictures. The possibility of being able to work the established hierarchies In a virtual environment, they lead to aerophobia can be treated from a much more effective perspective and facilitate its intervention for change.

This article is merely informative, in 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.

If you want to read more articles similar to Aerophobia or fear of flying: meaning, causes, symptoms and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

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