Unfortunately, this app is based on the level of treatment used back in 1975 in the original fear of flying course offered by Pan Am, education about how flying works and breathing exercises.

I worked on that program and was appalled at the distress experienced by far too many of the course participants. The methods used worked only for people with mild difficulty.

Recent research shows why the results were poor. Though they work on the ground, breathing exercises - the only psychological aid the course offered - are completely useless for fear of flying. See: http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/13/25

Though this app and the course offered by Virgin can, as the Pan Am course did over thirty years ago, help people with mild flying problems, more advanced methods are required for people with a moderate to severe problem with flying.

Advanced methods are based on brain scan research that has shown us much about how the brain regulates emotion, in particular the work of Allan N. Schore, Ph.D., author of Affect Regulation. It is now clear than early relationship with the primary caregiver is key in forming the emotional sequences that we depend on for stability. When good-enough sequences were not established, increased emotional strength is needed in order to fly without distress.

This means the fear of flying client has to be taught how to build inside new sequences of emotion, sequences that start with the initiation of stress but instead of leading to greater stress, lead instead to less stress, and then to calm.

This kind of advanced help is available, but certainly not by an app or a course based on breathing exercises.

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