Overcoming The "Forbidden To Fly". Aerophobia Case

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I want to tell you about one of my clients. He flies a lot for work, and he turned to me with a request to help cope with the fear of flying. Over the years, he tried a lot of options - pills, alcohol, flying in a company, but nothing helped, every time he brought himself and the flight attendants to the handle and left the plane completely exhausted. Whenever there was a car accident somewhere in the world, the news completely captured his attention. He read all reports, interviews, watched all videos on this topic on the Internet. He himself understood that his attention was painful, but he could not help himself. His next idea was to work out his fear in psychotherapy.

I am familiar with phobias, I know from my own experience how depressing it is when this or that phenomenon captures your attention and endlessly takes away your strength. Dealing with phobias is not easy, but at least I have experience of dealing with and overcoming phobias.

My client, let's call him Cyril, had aerophobia in childhood. His parents traveled a lot for work, and Kirill had to fly from them to his grandmother and back - these were flights through three or four cities, on small airplanes, he was always sick; For example, he told how at some point, while walking with his mother across the take-off field, he lay down on the asphalt and asked not to fly, but rather walk, but his mother explained that they would not be able to reach them on foot, and Kirill had to get on the plane.

By adolescence, the nausea was gone, only a very strong fear remained. He was always interested in stories about plane crashes, watched all possible videos about plane crashes, and, going to land, endlessly imagined in colors the many possible disasters that happen to him on this flight. It is clear that plane crashes occur much less frequently, but phobias, unfortunately, are not rational, and nothing prevented Kirill from imagining the worst.

I understood that the work would not be easy, but I need to try and find the triggering event - usually, if you find the source, the beginning of a process or mechanism, it becomes clear how it can be defeated. To do this, I suggested Kirill to use the script technique, how to compose a script for his life. As the writers do, I suggested starting with the ending. "Can you," I asked him, "imagine the ending of your story when you love to fly?"

Cyril approached the final point (for clarity, work on the script technique is carried out on a line of plates indicating the sequence of compositional elements), stood on it for a while - and his face smoothed out. “Yes, I imagine getting on a plane, and this gives me new energy, a feeling of lifting, the delight of moving in space - as if I were flying and physically feel myself moving in space, and some other hope for new events, changes . To be honest, I was prepared for the fact that Kirill would not be able to present positive emotions from the flight, and the fact that he was able to do it the first time gave me optimism, this allows me to hope that we will be able to cope with the problem.

After that, I asked him to go to the very first tablet, to the beginning of his script, and tell what happens there, what event he remembers when he is at the very beginning. At this point, I usually call a person his state, the opposite of the final one, for Cyril it was "no contact with the feeling of soaring, nailed to the ground, depressed, there is no hope for something new in life." I thought he would talk about some early flight, but he suddenly started talking about something else - about a case from his early childhood when he was drowning and almost died. At the same time, his face became withdrawn, he crossed his arms over his chest, as if saying “no” to me with his body, refusing to discuss.“Why,” he said, “I have already experienced this, forgot, why come back to this? I don’t want to talk about it”.

Unfortunately, it is to such cases that one has to return to therapy, even if they are unpleasant, without this it is sometimes impossible to find a connection between past events and the same phobias in the present. I explained this to Kirill and offered to continue, and he agreed. He told how he tried to wash his boots in the pit of an artificial pond, slipped, fell into the icy water and could not get out on his own, he did not have enough air, he shrank, stopped breathing. For a while, he seemed to die, no longer hoped to come to life, and seemed to curl up inside himself so as not to take a breath, which would definitely be the last.

- How did you escape?

- I was saved by a girl, a high school student, she was walking by and saw my red cap on the surface of the pond.

- What kind of girl?

Cyril pondered and, with some surprise, replied that he knew nothing about this girl, that he almost ousted her, as if he thought that he had gotten out of the water himself, while remembering the facts about the role of the girl who saved his life, he remembers completely exactly. I realized that it was possible to work with this. The fact is that psychotherapy, gestalt therapy is associated with the restoration of contact. It can be contact with experiences, emotions, forbidden episodes - or contact with living people. I asked Kirill to tell me about this girl. He replied that he even saw her once after that, already being a teenager himself - my mother pointed to her when she met, but he did not experience any grateful impulses, nothing like that. At the same time, he began to speak more slowly, and I asked what was happening to him now. “You know,” replied Kirill, “I understand that I underestimated her act, the fact that she really saved me from death.” I invited him here and now to talk psychodramatically with this girl, and he just as uncertainly, thoughtfully agreed.

We allocated an empty chair for Kirill's savior, I asked her to imagine that she was sitting here, this young girl whom he saw and, perhaps, even remembers, and asked what Kirill would like to know from her. “First of all, what prompted her to do this? She could have walked by. How did she feel? Where was she going? What are your thoughts? How did she see me, what did she see and feel, how did she decide? Or did she do it automatically?"

Listening to him, I was very impressed. I had the feeling that thinking about this, asking questions, Cyril becomes closer to this girl in his thoughts. Previously, he was very far from her, and now he is close to her. I asked him to turn not to me, but to her, and Cyril slowly, very quietly repeated his questions, even a little more, for example, was she not afraid to get her clothes dirty when going into the water, and I was very touched by this desire to imagine the sensations of another person, make it real. When he finished, I asked him to take the role of the savior and repeated the questions he asked. And she replied as follows:

- Yes, it was a rather unusual day. I often went the other way. I walked from school, I was alone. And I wanted to go the other way. I wanted to approach this pit. Although this is just a huge pit into which water is poured, it still reminded me of a large lake. I just wanted to be alone. I was in my thoughts, thinking how I was going to approach, sit next to me, and look at the water. At first I saw from afar how a little boy went to the edge of the pit and began to wash his boots. At first, he just dipped his legs there and tried to swing his leg, and then he sat down and began to scoop up water with his hands, and then he could not keep his balance and fell. Fell down, began to flounder. I quickened my pace, I saw that he was where it was shallow. I looked back, there was no one around. I no longer thought about anything, I realized that I had to get him out. When I ran up, you had completely disappeared, and only a cap was floating on the surface. I stepped into the water, it was icy. I expected that I would immediately fall to the chest. And then I saw a hand splash a meter away. I leaned forward, and I managed to grab your hand in the water. I started to get out, and there was ice under my feet, it was very slippery. It was hard, but I caught on a snag and got out with you. You were absolutely breathless. I put you upside down, started pressing on your chest. You had an open mouth. I started to give you artificial respiration, fortunately, we were taught in military training lessons. And so I tried and saw that you were breathing. I grabbed you in my arms and ran forward. I didn't know you. I came across a woman who was running to the side. She was very worried. When she saw you in my arms, she cried, screamed “What happened? What happened? Then it turned out that it was a neighbor with whom your mother left you when she went to work. She watched her children, and did not finish watching. She grabbed you from me and ran towards the trailers, calling for help, some people ran up to her. I stood still for a while and left. Then I heard from people I knew that you were still alive. I just decided for myself that thank God. I didn’t tell anyone about it.

Cyril from the role of a girl spoke very slowly and in detail, and after he finished his story, I asked him to return to his role and, perhaps, somehow respond to what I heard.

- Thank you, - said Cyril, - I was very touched by your story. It seems to me that you yourself did not even understand that you saved my life, as if you gave me a second birth, and I am sorry that we did not communicate after that. It would be very warm for me to see you and know that you are a person who was not indifferent to the fate of a drowning child.

I myself was also very touched. For almost the first time, I felt this moment of salvation - as if a person on the verge of death entrusts his life to someone, and between these people, who may not even have known each other, a bond is formed like a kindred one, maybe even stronger, they both know something- then, have experienced something that no one else has experienced. Before me floated the faces of people who once saved me, albeit not like Cyril, but still helped me, the doctors who operated on me, and felt great gratitude towards them.

Then I remembered that somehow in childhood I protected a girl of my own age from being bullied by older girls in a pioneer camp. Inside I was shaking with fear, afraid that I would be beaten, but for some reason they did not touch me. That girl, by the way, also did not thank me - but it didn’t matter, because I very definitely felt that I had done a good thing, and it felt good in itself. I thought that, in fact, I myself am grateful to her that she was defenseless in my presence and gave me the opportunity to protect her.

My memories faded away, and I again saw Cyril in front of me. I thought, how are the beginning and the end connected in the story of Cyril, why did he move from the fear of flying to this story?

Perhaps it is the fear of death from lack of support underfoot, experienced in such an early childhood, and an airplane in the air, far from the ground, is as connected to this lack of support as a pit with ice water. Connections with people give a sense of support. During our session, Kirill developed a connection with the savior, and along with this some inner feeling of support and confidence.

I asked Kirill how he feels now, and he admitted that he was somewhat shocked: for the first time in his life he remembered this girl and came so close to her in his thoughts, felt her - and in all subsequent events of his life he always turned to this episode, it was this event that gave him a new impulse to live, to build his life, which does not destroy him.

A week after our session, Kirill was waiting for another flight - to Europe and back. He flew back alone and again experienced unpleasant sensations, but on the way there, in which he was accompanied by an acquaintance, he did not notice the flight at all, did not feel anxiety, and felt free. Of course, such old phobias do not disappear in one lesson, but progress shows that we are on the right track.

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Friends and colleagues, I invite you to the training

"RELEASE FROM AEROPHOBIA"

June 22 at 19.00 - 22.30

Information:

I will be glad to see you)