Pteromerhanophobia

Aviophobie or flight fear describing the morbid fear of flying phobia respectively. Symptoms of Aviophobie can occur several days before a flight, but shortly before the flight, for example, at the gate or on the plane. Symptomatic sweaty palms, a racing heart, shallow breathing, stomach and intestinal cramps, dizziness, headache and nausea. Generally occurs in those on a general panic that seems to paralyze the entire body.

Causes

According to a survey by the Institute for Allensbach about 15 % of all Germans suffer from fear of flying. A further 20 % feel not very comfortable on board. An investigation of reasons of fear of flying showed 37% were afraid of losing control, 34 % fear of a possible plane crash and 13 % fear of height or the "invisible medium of air ." In this study, 38 people were interviewed and observed with fear of flying as part of a virtual exposition. The fear of flying is called a specific phobia according to DSM IV, depending on the situation and not as a " classic phobia", as they always composed of several referring to it fears.

According to the fear of flying study from 2007, there are at affected these three groups:

Mostly give respondents the fear of helplessness ( 61.2 % responses), before a crash ( 54.6 % responses) as well as from turbulence ( 44.1% responses) to. The fear of terrorist attacks within a year ( DFAZ Study 2006: 1.9%) rose by eight percentage points and is given as a reason by now 9.7% of people with fear of flying.

According to a recent survey of 2008, additional stress factors in private and professional range come in addition to the fear of flying added in 33.4 % of patients. Most flight anxiety often are already flown several times ( 61.5 %). While most women ( 44.3 %) were faced with the fear of flying after the first flight, the flight anxiety occurs in most men ( 27.1%) after several anxiety-free flights. The strength of the fear of flying judged the most between medium to strong. Many are of the opinion that their fear of flying is excessive and inappropriate ( 78.9 %).

Aviophobie the one of the specific phobias, and is related to claustrophobia.

Therapies

For the treatment of specific phobias, including the fear of flying is one, among other things, the confrontation is with anxiety-provoking stimuli in the context of a behavioral therapy. At the Department of Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, a new method of exposure therapy is used for the treatment of fear of flying, the Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ( VRET ). Here, the patients are exposed to virtual reality their anxiety-provoking situation.

There is also the opportunity to learn in professional fear of flying seminars on how to break the vicious circle of anxiety. These should include both a part of the technical background of flying, as well as a psychological explanation part to the fear mechanisms and how to control against this. Recent scientific studies have shown that there is no added value for the seminar participants, if the psychologist takes part in the flight. Still have the two largest German Airlines ( Lufthansa and Air Berlin) seminars with one, by the psychologists at / in accompanying financial statements flight.

Forecasts

Confrontation therapies have a success rate of 70-95 %. It was also shown that the virtual VRET procedure and conventional confrontation method achieved later consisting of training and flight event equally good results in comparison with a control group ( waiting-list group). A clinical study on this showed that in both methods, respectively 93 % of the participants were now flown at follow-up after 6 months. A self-evaluation of participants of a seminar against fear of flying revealed that 24% of people were totally fearless one year after the seminar.