Help Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Therapy – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

This information should not be considered as an accurate or complete description of NLP. It is a very basic description solely for the benefit of people who have a fear of flying and want to know something about the various forms of therapy available.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the most straightforward of the three therapies we outline here with regard to a fear of flying. It works on the basis that what we think governs how we feel. How we feel governs what we do. The power of this approach is obvious because it reflects how we actually behave and is easily observable by anyone. Though it is easier to see it working on other people than to believe it could work for ourselves. Our products are in line with both CBT and NLP

Here’s a very simple example; Suppose we have a fear of cats; if we see a cat we may think that it might scratch us.

Since being scratched by a cat is painful we would try to prevent it from either coming near to us or sitting on our lap. The relationship between thought, feeling and action is obvious in that example. More subtle examples however still follow the pattern. If I think that a television series isn’t funny I’d probably avoid the programme…but in reality it must actually be funny to some people or it wouldn’t be screened. I have to accept that some people find it funny… but all the time I hold my opinion my behaviour is unlikely to change. I think… and I feel…then I behave.

When it comes to a fear of flying things can be very complex. It’s not unknown for a fearful flyers to change their minds constantly about what they say worries them. First it’s the thought of turbulence and then it’s the thought of the pilots losing control and then the thought of the inevitable.

CBT is very likely to define the individual thoughts (fears) more precisely and separate them. In this way each fear can be dealt with independently until a more holistic view of flying can be found. On this website we tend to use this approach. First we discourage emotive language then we exchange myths for facts and let the fearful flyer see the evidence before him or her. With the removal of incorrect thoughts (wrong facts) feelings and behaviours can be changed. And on the forum we can see that in action.