Specialist can help you overcome your fear of flying

How can I beat my fear for flying? I have avoided flights for decades but my daughter weds in the UK in early 2017 and I will be compelled to be present.

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It has often been said that Mzee Jomo Kenyatta suffered from a fear of flying. Some have suggested that as President he flew only once to visit his friend Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. All his other trips were by road or railway.

It is possible that there is some truth in these stories, but even if only partially true, the point is made that even great people can suffer from one or another phobia. Ronald Reagan and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin are other members of the club.

Some years ago, we admitted a man to our care because of excessive use of alcohol. In his 30s, he had risen through the ranks of a major multinational through developing strategy that led the company to great success.

As often happens, his employer was so impressed with the young man that he promoted him to implement his own plan.

From here, things went horribly wrong. Initially he was required to travel on training missions once a month. He was a clever young man, and managed to plan his travel in such a way that he left base station on Saturdays, preferably at night.

He drank heavily on the Saturday, and in a drunken state, arrived at his destination, and worked out the hangover on the Sunday, and worked well during the week.

He would arrange to leave on Friday evening after a few drinks with his trainees and got back to the family on Saturday tired from work (and hangover) and neither his wife or boss were any the wiser for a long time.

Trouble started when more travel demands were made on him because he was doing so well. In time, he travelled four or five times a month, and he could no longer afford the luxury of weekend travel.

Sometimes the trips were short and occasionally he had to make the short one or two hour flights on the morning of the afternoon of training.

A few times, colleagues noted the smell of alcohol in his breath but made no comment. In time, however, the secret came out! This high flying young executive could not fly! (Note the pun).

In therapy, it became evident that he had self medicated with alcohol for many years to hide his problem of the fear of flying. All this time, he had made sure that he was numbed by alcohol before he could enter a plane.

This condition has a number of names, including flying phobia, and Aviophobia. This is simply the fear of being in an airplane or some other flying object such as a helicopter.

For some, the fear arises from being in an enclosed space, while for others it is the fear of being “up there” without anything to hold on to. In some cases, the phobia of flying is part of other fears but in yet other cases it exists as a specific (or single) phobia.

In the case of our young executive, the mere thought or mention of a flight led to attacks of panic diarrhoea, vomiting, rapid heartbeats as well as tremor and sweating. More recently, some people have developed fear of flying in the face of the threat posed by hijacking and terrorism.

Traditionally however, the fear arose from several causes for example, from being enclosed, fear of heights and in some cases fear that one might vomit as a result of motion sickness.

Turning back to you, your daughter and the wedding, we have some good news. Unlike the young man we saw, you do not seem to have any complication such as alcohol abuse. We will assume that you are a well adjusted happy father- in- law to be with only the single fear of flying.

We would suggest that you find a mental health specialist with knowledge and experience of psychological methods of treatment e.g. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). Many people have benefited from these techniques in which one is taught how the mind sometimes distorts information in such a way as to lead to a phobia such as yours.

Since you are neither a pilot nor a travelling salesman, it might be possible to give you two tablets next year.

One to take on the day of the flight out, the other on the way back! In other words what does it matter if you have flight phobia and you have no need to fly! It is a condition that we can manage on the basis of when the need (to fly) arises.