Resolving many aspects of Freeway and Bridge Fears

By Sarajane Thomas

Kathy (whom I have nicknamed "the bubbly one") got my name from the Practitioner's List on Gary Craig's web site. Due to a hearing loss, she preferred seeing me in person rather than our working together over the phone. In taking her history at our first session, Kathy's major complaint was that of experiencing intense anxiety while driving on the freeway - especially over bridges. When she called me for an appointment she mentioned that she felt quite certain that these problems were related to certain emotional trauma that had taken place earlier in her adult life.

During session one, Kathy related that following her divorce eight years ago while she was driving home after a child custody court hearing, she suddenly found herself frightened to drive over bridges. This fear has deeply intensified in the years since then.

The second major incident had occurred two years ago after Kathy lost a breast to cancer, was undergoing chemotherapy, and her second husband moved out of the house on the very day she started radiation treatments. On that same day she suddenly became frightened of driving on the freeway and had become even more seriously frightened of driving over bridges. This fear has also intensified over the years. We decided to work on the older event first.

Kathy was at a 9.9 intensity level when we started tapping on her fear of driving over bridges. After four rounds of tapping, she was down to a 1. One more round and she was at zero.

Kathy had a 5.0 intensity level when we approached the second issue - her untoward fear of driving on the freeway -- to such an extent that she frequently has her teen-age daughter drive in her place. For instance, the teen had actually driven the car for her to my office that day. Again, after 4 rounds of tapping, she was down to zero.

Our time was up, and I noticed that as she made move to leave my office, she still seemed quite anxious though improved from when she had originally arrived there. I supplied her with "EFT on a Page" from Gary's EFT Manual and suggestions as to some tapping (CB and KC points) she could do in the event of a re-occurrence of her fears.

Several days later, I checked with Kathy (as I do with all my clients) to see how she was doing. She told me she was more terrified than ever on the drive home from my office after our first session. There were obviously other aspects and/or issues at stake here.

When Kathy contacted me for a second appointment, I made plans to sneak up on the issues very slowly with her. It was then my plan to move to Kathy's parked car for the remainder of the session. Then, only when I was convinced she was truly at zero on both issues would we then travel together to the freeway with her at the wheel.

We scheduled two hours for session two. The following kind of set-up phrases (suggested by Gary for this kind of methodical tapping) were used to get us started on this sneaking-up kind of session for the child custody case, for the mastectomy (chemo and radiation), and her second husband leaving her while she was ill:

Even though I have a problem that sometimes makes me anxious...

Even though I have a problem that makes me excitable and fearful...

Then we tapped on her fears associated with:

Driving on the freeway (especially over bridges)

Getting dizzy and losing control at the car wheel while traveling over bridges

An incident where she panicked when she ran out of gas very late at night on the free near a bridge where she was left alone in the car while her sister went for gas.

Feelings toward her second husband

Once I was convinced of Kathy being at zero and after recognizing a cognitive shift in her, we moved to her car. We did some more testing to make certain that nothing in the car nor in her imagination could trigger any intensity in her whatsoever regarding the two major issues we had tapped on.

Happily, Kathy drove us to the freeway while describing herself as feeling light and airy. Once on the freeway, she began feeling some concern about changing lanes or getting into the faster left lanes. She pulled the car off the road and we did some tapping until she was down to zero, tested clear and felt ready to proceed once again. Once we moved back onto the freeway, she had a few twinges from feeling "all closed in" as she traveled in the middle lane. Instead of her pulling off the road again, I did surrogate tapping on myself for her (so as not to distract her while she was at the wheel) until these twinges were gone. The rest of the trip on the freeway was comfortable, and she was delighted with the results of our work.

Kathy emailed me later that the trip home had been great and without any stress whatsoever. For the first time in years, she was actually able to enjoy the scenery. She took a 100-mile trip by herself the following weekend; she was originally worried that she would "freak out" (her words), but this did not occur. She was now busily engaged in telling everybody about tapping who would listen to her enthusiastic healing tale.

Kathy contacted me a few weeks later to say that she was starting to get a re-occurrence of small spikes around driving over bridges. She came back for a third two-hour appointment shortly after that. She showed me how well she was doing despite these occasional spikes by relating a story to me. The day before her appointment she was moving with traffic on to the freeway and was traveling directly behind a truck hauling large cut pieces of lumber. One of those pieces of lumber fell off the truck and bounced straight in the direction of Kathy's car. She immediately swerved to miss an impact with the wood and she skillfully avoided an accident. Afterward she was amazed at how quickly she emotionally recuperated from this near accident which she credits to tapping. During our third session together, we worked on her:

Anger at her ex-husband (first husband); able to forgive him

Fear of her ex-husband because he threatened to get custody of the children

Fear of ex-husband because of his emotional abuse

Fear of ex-husband's vengeful treatment of her

Fear of ex-husband causing her to feel insecure and unsafe

Fear about money issues when her second husband left her while she was ill and unable to work

Second husband abandoning her while she was very ill and had small children to care for

Feeling vulnerable and disfigured from mastectomy

Felt mutilated at the time second husband left her

Fear of bridging into a new life without a husband to support her

Letting go of old life and bridging into a new life

Kathy had a noticeable cognitive shift with the forgiving of her first husband. During occasional testing, she was casually able to discuss anything regarding him and the issues listed above without any spikes. Happily, I sent her home with a list of set-up phrases to continue to tap on such as: "Even though I'm angry with my ex, I choose to be anger free." "Even though I felt abandoned, I choose to feel secure." "Even though I remember feeling vulnerable and disfigured, I choose to be a strong person."

As usual, I will continue to follow up on Kathy's progress and offer help if it is needed.

Sarajane Thomas