Andrew Balfour, 48, a sales manager from Barnes in southwest London, is not the sort of man who enjoys delving into his psyche. So when he considers why his fear of flying crept up on him, it seems out of character to hear him say: “Perhaps it’s because I am a bit of a control freak. I don’t like being out of control.”

He is not alone. An estimated ten million people in the UK have some fear of flying, despite claims from the aviation industry that it is the safest way to travel. And figures indicate that it is getting safer; in 1979 there were three fatal accidents per million flights, compared with only one per million today. But people who suffer from aviophobia are not swayed by statistics, and, as in Balfour’s case, it can threaten their livelihoods, if not govern their lives.

Balfour’s fear of flying began on a work trip to Brussels 12 years ago. “I’d been in the job for about a year-and-a-half and I don’t know why but on this particular flight the turbulence really began to get to me. I started to sweat and to think paranoid thoughts, such as how easy it was for a plane to fall out of the sky, and what if there was mechanical failure.”

An optimist by nature, he hoped that on each subsequent trip his fears would improve, but with an average of 40 business trips to make every year his unease about flying deepened, making his working life difficult. “I tried anything that anyone recommended: a couple of brandies before getting on the plane, pain-killers, Bach Flower Rescue Remedy, but nothing seemed to help.” At the check-in desk, he would mention his nervousness to staff, and was often allowed to sit at the front of the plane, near or alongside the pilot (before 9/11) because “talking to someone helped”.

Emotional freedom techniques (EFT), or tapping, was developed in the US in the 1990s. Like acupuncture, it works on the meridian system (“energy channels”) in the body, stimulating eight major meridian points by tapping or massaging them lightly. At the same time, the client talks about the problem or issue to release its intensity, described as “tearless trauma”.

Balfour heard about EFT from his wife, who had been seeing an EFT practitioner, Nichola Schwarz, in Acton, West London, “to help her shift 13 years of emotional clutter”. He says: “She said it was helping her and it was good for phobias. I thought, ‘I’m open to new ideas’.”

Schwarz, who also trained in hypnotherapy, combined her skills to help Balfour overcome his fears in just three sessions. “First I do a background questionnaire,” says Schwarz, “and discuss any originating events, triggers and anxieties, such as turbulence in Balfour’s case. When the client focuses on an event that causes them anxiety, I ask them to rate the intensity of their feelings on a scale of one to ten.

“We are not initially delving into the specific event, but the feelings around the event, while tapping on the face, the collar-bone and under the arm.”

According to Schwarz, this process helps to release the energy and negative emotions associated with the event and reduces the intensity of the fear. In Balfour’s case she uncovered, as an “originating event”, a particularly unpleasant cross-Channel boat trip that had taken place before the Brussels flight, in which passengers had been screaming and crying in the unusual swell of a bad nighttime crossing. The sensation of bumpiness, such as turbulence, was one of Balfour’s triggers.

As well as getting to the bottom of the phobia, Schwarz also showed Balfour where to tap on his body if the fears arose during or in anticipation of a forthcoming flight.

At the end of his first double session with Schwarz, which lasted for two hours, he recalls that he felt quite drowsy. “I was relaxed all day and slept well that night.” In the second session the following week, four days before Balfour’s next flight, Schwarz focused on looking at the bad experiences — the boat trip and flights “and other events when he had felt out of control”. He thought about those experiences until he could recall them without any symptoms.

Balfour reports that after two sessions, “I felt more confident”. When he came to take his next trip, he tapped on his meridian points beforehand and felt none of the previous nervousness. After the flight, he returned for another session, in which he “future-paced” himself by imagining himself in the body of a confident flyer, a colleague he knew well, as extra insurance against his fears.

Since then he has had only one wobble. “I hadn’t been using the tapping techniques for a while and had to call Schwarz before a delayed flight, when I was thinking of getting the train.” Schwarz reminded him over the phone where to tap, talked through the specific feelings and issues he should be focusing on and told him to call back in an hour. Schwarz recalls: “I was really pleased because he took it, ran with it and sorted it out himself.”

Balfour admits that he is not someone who has looked into the science of why EFT has worked for him, but considers himself “lucky to have found something that has taken the place of brandy”.

EFT — the key points What is it?

EFT (emotional freedom techniques) is a therapy that works directly on the meridian system in the body, as acupuncture does. Instead of the main meridian points being stimulated with needles, it is done by tapping or massaging. It is also a talking therapy, in which the client focuses on the pain or problem while the tapping takes place. The technique is simple, and much of the skill is in the practitioner’s ability to get to the core of the problem.

Claims to be good for phobias, trauma, addictions and performance anxiety.

Cost About £80 for an hour session. Expect anything from one to 12 sessions, depending on the complexity of the issue.

Contact Nichola Schwarz (07946 526838); to find a practitioner near you, visit the Association for the Advancement of Meridian Energy Techniques, www.aamet.org , and click on the relevant section. Experienced practitioners should be certified to level 2 or to master level.

WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE?
DR TOBY MURCOTT

Is there evidence that EFT can help with phobias? Clinical research suggests that EFT may be effective in treating at least one type of irrational fear. A study of 30 people with phobias about small animals, published in 2003, found that it relieved the phobias more effectively than deep breathing relaxation. The patients received only one 30-minute session but the improvements lasted for up to nine months.

Is it effective? This study was small and its results are at odds with a larger trial in which 119 university students used one of four different approaches: EFT; a placebo involving tapping nonmeridian points on their bodies; tapping points on a doll; and no intervention. Students in the first three groups experienced similar relief; those who had no intervention experienced no significant change. The researchers concluded that the benefits of EFT came from its similarity to more traditional therapies.

Does the tapping do anything? Ros Taylor, a chartered psychologist who ran fear-of-flying courses with British Airways for ten years, says that we can learn to associate different experiences. Balfour had come to associate the tapping with being calm, so tapping himself before flying could help to produce that sense of ease.

Dr Toby Murcott is a former BBC science correspondent

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