Les Posen's Fear of Flying Weblog

A full colour brochure about my work - take it to your GP

f you've decided to visit your GP to have an assessment (allow 30 minutes at least for a 2710 item visit - and tell reception this is what you're after), take the sample treatment plan with you. But also consider printing out and taking with you this full colour brochure to leave with your GP. It's two pages, so print it on both sides of a single sheet so as not to waste paper. It's large (1MB) because it's full colout PDF (you'll need Acrobat or Preview installed - almost all new PCs and Macs come with these applications). The file is called "GP FoF info.pdf

File Name	File Size	File Link
GP FoF info.pdf	979.5 KB	Download

Welcome! Here's where you can obtain accurate Australian-based Airline and Clinic-tested information about Fear of Flying

My name is Les Posen, a Clinical Psychologist in Melbourne, Australia.

(Recently Updated: December 26, 2007) This is a psychologist's weblog devoted to helping those who need assistance dealing with fear of flying. This is a situation which interferes with the professional and personal lives of anywhere between 10-25% of the populations of many countries, especially those where the vast majority take flying for granted.

Let's cut to the chase quickly. This blog contains information and ideas for anyone interested in the subject of fear of flying, and becoming a better flyer. It may also be of service to those wishing to help their friends, colleagues, family and patients fly more comfortably.

If you have come here via Google or Wikipedia or other link, seeking help for yourself, let me get the self-promotional aspects out of the way immediately! Here goes:

If you live in Australia, and wish to speak with me personally about your concerns, you can call on

0413 040 747

Yes, that is a -747 in the number! Make sure you leave Caller ID on, or leave a message if you want me to call back, or an SMS.

And in the state of Victoria where I am registered to practise as a Psychologist, I am located in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield for those who would like to make an appointment for consultation. Also contact via email: les@lesposen.com

My work utilises evidence-based treatments including Cognitive-Behaviour Therapies, Virtual Reality exposure technology, Biofeedback and Heart Rate Variability equipment to help measure and modify anxiety levels, and then take actual accompanied flights for select clients.

The practice specialises in Anxiety Disorders, including fears and phobias of heights, animals, public speaking, tunnels, bridges, driving, social situations as well as flying. Children and adolescents especially like the computer-based treatments I use which are similar to the video games they like to play with.

Services by psychologists for a limited range of mental health issues are now reimbursable under Medicare.

I have created a page here on the blog where you can read more information and download important information for yourself and your medical practitioner. Please go there now if you are seriously considering seeking treatment from a Clinical Psychologist in Australia after referral from your GP, Psychiatrist or Paediatrician. Click on this link. Otherwise, Welcome to Australian and International visitors, and read on...

Welcome!

I'm not sure how you got here - perhaps by accident, maybe you looked for me, perhaps you used a search engine like Google, but however the case, I'm glad you got here. And I hope if you want to fly better, or help someone you know fly better, you'll be glad you got here too!

But is this site about Fearful flying?

Yes it is!

It's one person's effort to sort out the fact from fiction from fear, in an internet-age bursting with information, not all of it accurate, helpful or... free! So I made this blog to offer just that - accurate free useful information presented in a fun and interesting way.

I want you to know too that people come to see me, in person or via email, for all sorts of reasons related to their flying. And my approach to helping people with their flying is to help them become better or wiser flyers - hence my business name, Flightwise. In other words, if you were to consult with me, I would help you go beyond reducing your fears, and to learn to do better for yourself when you fly. Becoming a wise flyer is about more than anxiety reduction (although many people would be happy for just that!). It's also about taking care of yourself when flying and maximising your chances of enjoying the experience, as distant as that might sound right now.

How can you use my Fear of Flying Weblog?

The brief answer is: anyway you wish!

You can jump and skip about however you wish - that's the essence of a blog, as well as its connections to other sites. You can leap about and pickup tidbits of information all over the blog - I don't write in a particular sequence or order. I did this on purpose because not all fears are created equal or the same way. What makes sense to one person, will be irrelevant to another. So click on whatever link seems to offer something to you. Some of the links will take you somewhere else in this blog, and others will take you to another site by opening another browser page - that way you can easily return here to pick up the story where you left off. The links are always underlined like this. (Be aware that I am adding new links all the time, so come back to favourite blog entries to re-read and see if I've updated links).

The links generally relate to the paragraph or entry in which they are embedded. Occasionally, my warped sense of humour (one of the important traits of fear of flying treatment, by the way) will get the better of me, and you will be transported somewhere quite removed from the subject at hand. Other times, the reference or link will be quite clear. However, no matter where the link takes you, please do not consider it an unconditional recommendation on my part. I will rarely if ever recommend a product or service in a link unless I myself use it, or have first hand knowledge of it. The link is there for illustrative purposes only - take from the link's content what you wish.

(Disclaimer: Some links will take you to a service or product for which I may potentially earn associate credits. I would direct you to such links whether or not such an arrangement was possible or in place. As always with any website, caveat emptor. Trust in my recommendations will hopefully be earnt as you explore the links, and my small engagement in the free enterprise system - to fund my next flight.. really! - will not offend you.)

Also this blog by design will always have the current section you're reading ("Why I started this blog") top-most, and if you scroll down you will see all my entries in the order I wrote them. Blogging usually has it the other way around, with the most current thoughts the first you see when you come to the page from an external site or bookmark. Well, this is not an ordinary blog. I would prefer a new reader to come to the site at this current point, gain some orientation, then go play with the links at their liberty. Apart from that, as one correspondent wrote to me, the blog is an "organic", living, breathing work, and I will be as interested where it goes as the next person!

The nature of the blog is for me to add things that interest me, because I think it may interest you by dint of it being useful, adding value to your ability to change, or simply being humorous or intriguing. Scroll up and check the Categories section in the panel over on page left

to see how I've divided up the blog, and keep looking out for changes. There is a black panel under the Categories area which will allow you to be notified be email each time I make an addition to the weblog, so you won't miss out on anything interesting or newsworthy. Speaking of which...

Also note the "In the News" category. Here is where I will be adding material of commercial aviation interest, as if you were a regular better flyer, interested but unafraid of flying. Start reading about normal aviation happenings now, rather than when you feel 100% ready. How will you ever know anyway? That's a serious question, by the way!

Most blogs contain an area for feedback or blog linking from readers to be displayed. You can do the same here by clicking the highlighted comment link, below, to post a response. Feel free to direct any questions to me here.

So why do a weblog about Fear of Flying?

Weblogs are different than static webpages. They more represent a currency of thinking, much more here-and-now compared to a billboard/shop-front approach. It is more akin to a dialogue between reader and writer.

It means that I can update readers when new information is available which I consider helpful. This may be research-based as published in scholarly journals, new programs I find out about, newspaper or television stories, or discoveries I make on flights with my own patients. Or what they tell me worked for them when we meet up again.

If incidents occur which may challenge readers in their progress, I can immediately update the weblog as information comes to hand. Mind you, don't expect me to keep a log of incidents - there are plenty of websites that will do that, as well as the media. Trouble is, reading them is usually not helpful to clients or readers, as they merely add to the quantity of distorted or inaccurate "information". Even when accurate, it's the sort of information that needs to be carefully digested through a "knowledge" filter.

Most fearful flyers have knowledge filters that tend to actively bring in catastrophic information, and exclude reasonable or testable data. In other words, do you know which information is helpful versus a hindrance? The "filter" mechanism is usually quite powerful, and as time goes on the filters tend to get more restrictive, keeping more accurate information out, and letting more distorted information in... especially as you fly more often. That sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but explains why some people claim to get worse the more they fly, not better.

There are even more elaborate yet easy to understand explanations for this which I'll discuss in another section of the weblog. (If you must know now, you can go here.)

But for now, welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I intend to, and start poking about at the various links, stories and opinions I have to share. There are many others who will write about fear of flying, but so far this is the only psychologists' blog in the world on the subject. Enjoy!