MY SIX-FOOT-THREE-INCH husband takes issue with the cramped seats and lack of legroom. Others find the food to be the biggest turnoff. What bothers me more than the fleeting physical discomfort is being miles above the earth's surface, hurtling through the air in a tiny metal capsule, my life in the hands of a complete stranger who for all I know is hungover, depressed, or simply not the brightest bulb on the porch. You know, the flying part.

It's not just that the act of being airborne seems to defy the most basic law of nature (let go of a pencil in midair or--better yet--leap off your roof and see what happens). Nothing about flying makes sense. Why, for instance, do they instruct passengers in the use of the flotation device on a flight from Boston to Chicago? What masochist decided to name the departure area a "terminal"? Why is it that I can"feel free to roam about the cabin" when we're soaring through the stratosphere but am risking life and limb if I unbuckle my seat belt before we're parked at the arrival gate? I can appreciate that automobile restraints can stymie the grim reaper, but one wonders: Has a lap-placed strip of nylon--worn by a seated passenger while the plane is on the ground--ever prevented an onboard casualty?

A friend suggests Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a possible cure. Though the name smacks of The Manchurian Candidate, I am assured that this New Age therapy, which has been around since the mid '70s, has been used successfully to treat all kinds of phobias, including flying. Self-help addict that I am, I sign up for a two-hour session. "I hope this works," I'm thinking. "It damn well better," I add when I fork over the $400 fee.

THE NAME SAYS IT ALL I greet Doug Swain, Santa Barbara-based NLP master practitioner, with a mixture of apprehension and excitement.

"Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken?" I ask.

Swain sighs. Although we will be using some hypnosis techniques, all the work we do today will be done by me. I'm just the tour guide," he says.

First on the agenda is an intro to Neuro-Linguistic Programming. When we have an experience, Swain explains, we bring in information through our five senses, then process and store it--a function of our neurology. To describe that experience, we translate it into language--hence "linguistic." To explain the "programming" part, Swain likens the mental process to the PC.

"A computer does what we program it to do," he says. "Likewise, we create pay terns of behavior within ourselves through the language we use." According to Swain, if one were to change the phrase "I have to go to work" to "I get to go to work," the mind would gradually be persuaded by the lexical suggestion that work was as exciting as a Lakers game. With enough repetition, even Dilbert could find himself looking forward to his daily cubicle stint.

Practitioners describe NLP as a collection of tools rather than a singular methodology. Whatever it is, it's certainly flexible: According to NLP Comprehensive, an educational group, "If a tool works, ifs included in the model, even if there's no theory to back it up." The NLP Information Center offers: "NLP is not based on theory; it is based on the process of making models. There is a big difference. A model doesn't have to he `true' or `correct' or even perfectly formed, k only has to be useful when applied to what ifs designed for."

"Most of the techniques used in NLP are borrowed from other therapeutic approaches and are very, very effective," says Kent Bennington, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Encinitas. "Many involve mind-body techniques such as hypnosis and even breathing that are thousands of years old." Nevertheless, he adds, NLP has been viewed as something of a fringe movement--probably because practitioners do not need licensing or extensive experience.

"NLP isn't `let's find the pain and revel in it,'" says Swain. "If you go to a psychologist every week and relive a negative experience, wouldn't that only reinforce the problem? That's why some people choose not to get help. I'm not interested in why you feel a certain way but how you construct those feelings. That's what we can change."

"Flying's great," I think. Nothing. Clearly we've got some work to do.

SURVEYING THE MENTAL LANDSCAPE "I want to know about the problem you used to have, the one concerning flying," Swain begins. Though I ignore the not-so-subtle suggestive power of the past-tense phrasing, I try to keep an open mind. "If I wanted to have the same experience you used to have, what would I have to do?"

Oh, brother.

I tell Swain that as soon as he contemplated a trip, he'd have to begin scouring the papers in the sick, secret hope there would be news of a plane crash (safety measures surely get beefed up in the wake of an accident). He'd have to start crafting notes to be left for loved ones in the event of his untimely demise. Turn the house upside down, disposing of any embarrassing items. Visualize his flight number in headlines next to pictures of mangled fuselage.

As I ramble, Swain punctuates my laundry list with the same question: "If I didn't do that, would I be able to have the same experience you used to have?" Well, no, I answer defensively. But that's not the point.

Apparently, it is. Swain believes the fear I have stems not so much from the event of flying as it does from the imagery I create to surround it. Them are "dozens of techniques" an NLP practitioner can employ; Swain decides that Time Line Therapy will be most effective in helping me rewrite my internal script.

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE Swain instructs me, with my eyes closed, to visualize a time line stretching from my earliest associated memory, going through the present, and moving into the future. He asks questions about where I am and what I am doing at various times and places. Am I watching myself, as in a movie, or am I inside the experience? Is it in color or in black and white? (For many people, adding color to an image intensifies the associated feelings; black and white neutralizes them.) What does my time line look like? Which direction is the future? Where is the past? My answers tell him which representational system (or sense) I rely on, information he can use to help me unlearn my phobia.

When I'm asked to characterize a fearful flight, the description includes things like "the flight attendants seem scared" and "the sky looks ominous." This means I've attached unpleasant visual cues to the experience. (Everyone has a dominant sense. Phrases like "I hear what you're saying" and "I feel for you" are a giveaway.) "Because of our neurology," Swain says, "we can't be in a positive and negative state simultaneously. Because the stronger emotion always wins out, we `stack' positive images until they outweigh the negative."

Time to bid the terrified flight attendants good-bye. Again with my eyes closed, I focus on their petrified rices while Swain visually monitors my eyelid movement. (When I question him later, he explains that these movements tell him what type of information I am accessing--a tidbit that is a bit too Big Brother for me.) I focus intently until Swain tells me to "switch!" at which point I replace the nerve-racked flight crew with a happier snapshot (my husband and me kicking it in first class, guzzling champagne). We repeat the "swish pattern" exercise over and over, each time allowing the unpleasant image less airtime. After 20 or so exhausting minutes of mental flip-flopping, it is nearly impossible to reconstruct the original image. (Believe me, I try) We do this exercise several times, until every recurring, unhelpful image has been replaced.

After what seems like four days, the two hours are up. I don't feel any different, but Swain insists we are done and the effects of our session will be cumulative and lasting.

PUTTING WORDS INTO ACTION A week later I'm sitting on a British Airways jumbo jet, hoping he's right. There is no Valium coursing through my veins, no brigade of tiny vodka bottles stashed in my bag. As we begin taxiing down the runway I am amazed to discover my heart is not hammering out the staccato tune it usually prefers on ascent. My palms are not clammy; my forehead is as dry as the Mojave. Once we achieve cruising altitude--get this--I fall asleep. When we hit a patch of turbulence, my first, honest-to-God thought is, "Planes were built for this. Just like a boat taking the waves."

We fly to London, Dublin, Paris. I look out the window. I read. I nap. I'm still happier with my feet on the ground, but the fear of flying and its attendant reactions are not there.

Advocates claim NLP can clarify career objectives, alter habitual behaviors (such as smoking), thwart anxiety attacks, and overcome traumatic experiences. It can even help couples achieve marital harmony. Sometimes people attach negative anchors to the image of their mate," Swain says. "Negative emotions don't Serve any purpose after the fact. We want to hold on to what we've learned but let the emotions go. NLP allows us to do that quickly and easily."

A few days after our return, I am hit with the news that I have to fly again--this time for a funeral. I worry that now that the "fun factor" has been removed perhaps my fear will resurface. Amazingly, the disconcerting physiological response to flying I used to have has vanished. Is it the power of suggestion? Subliminal justification? Placebo effect? Who cares?