Driving Anxiety - Course?

[JeS10]

My wife has some major anxiety surrounding driving. She hates it. Absolutely hates driving. We live in the middle of nowhere, so she needs to be able to drive with the baby. She has had her license for 2 years and the furthest she has driven is into Edinburgh from our house (15 miles). She's probably driven a maximum of 100 miles in 2 years. Yet she can drive perfectly well, that's the odd thing.

What can we do? I think actual practical hand-on experience with an advanced tutor would be better than CBT etc. Thoughts? Recommendations?

[titian]

There is an IAM Roadsmart group of advanced motorists in the Edinburgh area, contact:-
Group telephone number: 07875 976634

Please don't be put off by the name, they will be able to offer support for your wife and help build her confidence. It's worth a call!

[TooMany2cvs]

JeS10 said:

My wife has some major anxiety surrounding driving. She hates it. Absolutely hates driving. We live in the middle of nowhere, so she needs to be able to drive with the baby. She has had her license for 2 years and the furthest she has driven is into Edinburgh from our house (15 miles). She's probably driven a maximum of 100 miles in 2 years. Yet she can drive perfectly well, that's the odd thing.

What can we do? I think actual practical hand-on experience with an advanced tutor would be better than CBT etc. Thoughts? Recommendations?

It's a difficult one.

An instructor could help if there was a problem with her driving - but you say there isn't.
Is it a confidence thing? If she's simply afraid she'll not know what to do, maybe get badly lost - then that's just practice. Doing so little in the time since passing her test won't have helped. If so, lessons might help, if you find the right instructor - but the wrong instructor could make matters worse.
She's afraid she's going to cock up, crash, kill the baby? Is there some kind of history there, a bad crash when she was a kid or something like that?
Or is it simply a "She doesn't like it at all, and doesn't want to do it" thing? If so, I'm not even sure where you'd begin to address that.

Taxis...?

[angoooose]

I'd suggest at looking at alternative therapies - either hypnotism or possibly kinesiology (if you can find the right practioner)

Either should be able to get to the source of the problem

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

There could be a hundred potential causes for this anxiety, and it's probably a job for a professional to determine.

Google should provide a local instructor that can help.



ETA - cross-posted with angoooose - if it's not simply a question of practice, then thats the way to go.

[Pica-Pica]

Maybe a change of car with better visibility? Is that an issue.