A fear of heights can’t necessarily be cured, but can be overcome. Anxiety never gets ‘cured,’ as once you address the thoughts and behaviors that contribute to anxiety, then the anxiety can come back if you resort to maladaptive, negative thinking and maladaptive, avoidant behaviors.
So a fear of heights can be overcome by addressing the way you think about being in high places, and the way you behave in response to the anxiety induced by heights. So let’s say you have a fear of heights, and this is the reason you won’t cross bridges, or go to the top of a tall building and look down. When you are confronted with crossing a bridge or going to the top of a tall building, you may think that the structure is unsafe or you might fall and injure yourself or die. So when you think such thoughts, guess what? It makes you feel highly anxious and fearful. This anxiety is quite uncomfortable, so you resort to behaviors which make you feel better, safer, and less anxious and fearful. So you might avoid crossing bridges, or you might avoid going to the top of tall buildings. This avoidant behavior helps you to decrease anxiety over the short term, but over the long term, it makes your anxiety worse. If you would just cross the bridge or go to the top of the tall building, then you would eventually find out that the anxiety will go away on its own, naturally, and that you can cross the bridge or go to the top of a tall building without problems. If you avoid bridges and tall buildings, then you never get to find out that the anxiety will just go away on its own, and that you will indeed be safe. So the avoidant behaviors reinforce your thoughts that bridges and tall buildings are unsafe, and the negative, vicious cycle of your fear of heights continues.
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