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Applying EFT in Clinical Practice

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Hidden Aspects of the Fear of Flying

By Patricia Carrington

Most of us know that fear of flying usually has many aspects and that it may well require more than one session of EFT to clear up this type of fear entirely.

I frequently get email, telling me that the writers have not been as successful as they would like to be in clearing a flight phobia completely, even when using EFT, although they have targeted some of the more familiar aspects of plane fears such as: 

� Fear of being in an enclosed cabin 

� Not being in control during the flight 

� Fear of plane crashing 

�  Fear of heights 

�  Fear of being hijacked, etc. 

In addition to these more commonly seen aspects, there can also be INDIVIDUAL aspects in any fear of flying which, if overlooked, can prevent a person from coming all the way down to zero in his or her Intensity Level when applying EFT. Let me give you an example:

A client I worked with experienced a severe anxiety attack in an uneventful cross continental flight, and when I questioned him about the aspects involved in his fear he kept shaking his head.  No, he had absolutely no fear at takeoff or at landing. No, he had no fear of heights. No, turbulence was not his problem etc.

At first it seemed we were getting nowhere, but as we kept digging, the answer finally revealed itself. What really frightened him, he said, was when the plane seemed to be "not moving at all", when it felt as though it were suspended in mid-air. At such times he'd get the feeling that he was "waiting for the bottom to fall out from under me." There were one or two other aspects to his fear of flying that bothered him too, but the one we tackled first was this fear of the plane appearing to be motionless and "hovering".

(NOTE: I report this case in more detail in my Choices Manual as an important example of using a Personal Resource State to overcome fears).

I asked him if he felt equally distressed when traveling under other circumstances, and in other vehicles than a plane?

He immediately told me that he had no trouble at all traveling in cars, buses or trains, and that he LOVED driving his own car and did so frequently. This provided a clue about as to where we might go in terms of creating an EFT Choices phrase, and I suggested to him that he might want to make a Choice which would go something like,

"Even though I feel anxious when the plane seems to stand still, I choose to feel the way I would if I were driving my car."

He responded to this maneuver with enthusiasm, and within a short time his fear of riding on planes had come way down. This particular Choice worked so well for him, in fact, that he applied it to some of his other concerns about flying with great success, as for example:

"Even though I'm anxious about an air disaster, I choose to feel as if I were driving my car". For each of these issues, choosing to feel at ease the way he did when driving his car absolutely did the trick. We had effectively shortened his treatment by who can guess how much.

Another not too often encountered aspect of fear of flying is a person's anxiety about being prevented from going to the toilet if necessary by the "Keep Seat Belt Fastened" sign. A client with whom I recently worked, reported that she experienced an extreme fear of this occurring every time she traveled by plane. We managed to clear this fear completely with EFT, but not until we had tapped away an infant memory of her Mother shrieking in distress and ridiculing her when, as a baby, she had leaked a few "drops" on the sheets of her crib.

We had fun during her EFT session as this woman repeated a reframe which I couched as an EFT choice:

"Even though I had terrible shame when Mom ridiculed me, I choose to see how ridiculous her shrieks were and BE AMUSED BY THEM."

Her laughter cleared the whole incident for her, and with it the fear of being caught short without being able to get to the bathroom fast enough on a plane.  Her intensity level plunged from an initial 10 (on a 0 to 10 point scale of Intensity) to a 2.

We needed to tap on only one more aspect to clear this issue completely for her:

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