Soar: The Breakthrough Treatment for Fear of Flying

Captain Bunn founded SOAR to develop effective methods for dealing with flight anxiety. Therapists who have found this phobia difficult to treat will find everything they need to give their clients success. Anxious flyers who have “tried everything” to no avail can look forward to joining the nearly 10,000 graduates of the SOAR program who now have the whole world open to them as they fly anxiety free wherever they want. This approach begins by explaining how anxiety, claustrophobia, and panic are caused when noises, motions—or even the thought of flying—trigger excessive stress hormones. Then, to stop this problem, Captain Bunn takes the reader step-by-step through exercises that permanently and automatically control these feelings. He also explains how flying works, why it is safe, and teaches flyers how to strategically plan their flight, choose the right airlines, meet the captain, and so on. Through this program, Captain Bunn has helped thousands overcome their fear of flying. Now his book arms readers with the information they need to control their anxiety and fly comfortably.

“SOAR is more than a program of effective exercises to treat fear of flying. SOAR provides a relevant and understandable explanation of how the nervous system—as it works outside of awareness to protect us—overreacts and puts us into a state of anxiety when flying. SOAR provides the toolkit to educate the part of the brain that is below consciousness and involved in regulating anxiety to more accurately evaluate risk related to flying.”  —Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation 

From an author who has the unique perspective of an airline captain and a licensed therapist, SOAR is a groundbreaking program that uses techniques based on new brain scan technology to automatically control feelings when flying and cure flight anxiety within a week to 10 days.

Captain Tom Bunn L.C.S.W. worked on the first Fear of Flying program at Pan Am and founded SOAR in 1982. He is a licensed therapist, and lives with his wife Marie.