People scared of flying can now press a button on their iPhone to help them deal with their panic, as Virgin Atlantic Airways has launched an application (app) for its Flying Without Fear course which boasts a success rate of over 98 percent.
Apps are a source of information, games and other novelty ideas for users of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices.The airline said in a statement that this app was designed to help people overcome fear, be it of unfamiliar aircraft, the strange noises a plane makes, or of losing control.
“Our first iPhone app will bring the benefits of our successful Flying Without Fear course to millions of people around the world who are now using mobile technology to make their lives better.
“The app will put many travellers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight,” Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group said in a statement.
The airline developed the app with Mental Workout, a company developing software to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance. A spokesman from Mental Workout said an estimated one in every three adults was scared of flying.
The Flying Without Fear app has an introduction by Branson, a video-based in-flight explanation of a flight, frequently asked questions, relaxation exercises and a fear attack button for emergencies with breathing exercises.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this app is not just overblown. This is all promotion and no substances.
The app is based on the methods 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 on the “graduation flight”. Though a 90% success rate was claimed, that figure – like the Virgin figure – is based on how many course participants take the “graduation flight”. Six months later, only 65% could fly which, interestingly enough, was the same percentage who were able to fly when they applied to take the course!
The methods used worked, at best, 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.