I am 25, and I have just received my driver's license. I am very afraid to drive. Why is that? I plan on buying a car later this month. Please help me get over my fear.

K.

I can't give you any specific insight into why you're afraid to drive without talking with you personally and getting more information. But I'll mention some possibilities you can peruse to see if they might apply to you, and -- perhaps most important -- some options to consider in addressing your fear.

Some people's fear of driving is related to being nervous or anxiety-prone in general, or to not having very much experience driving. They may be afraid of having an accident and tend to "freeze up" and feel incompetent when even thinking about driving. Other people develop a phobia about driving after they've been in an accident, whether as driver or passenger, or have witnessed or been affected by someone else's accident.

Regardless of the origins of your fear, there are several possible routes you might take to overcome it. One might be to face your fear in a safe (and, if need be, supportive) setting, and gradually desensitize yourself to driving by first practicing in an area without much traffic -- such as a quiet neighborhood or an empty parking lot -- until you grow comfortable, and then moving on step by step to more challenging arenas. In this scenario, you'd leave as the last step whatever scares you the most ... driving on an interstate during rush hour, for instance, or navigating downtown city traffic. The key is to first become adjusted to driving in one situation before moving on to tackle the next. You can make the steps or the pace of tackling them as slow as you want to.

Another possibility is to see a counselor who has expertise in helping people get over fears and phobias. You can call the psychology department of your nearest college or university for a referral, or ask your physician, or contact your local community mental health center. Behavior therapy (of which the desensitization process I outlined above could be a part) is often helpful in overcoming phobias. So is a relatively new therapeutic technique some people refer to as psychological acupressure techniques, in which the individual focuses on the fear while tapping on points on the body's acupuncture meridians (channels for the subtle energy which flows throughout our bodies).