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Dr. Blumberg’s Story and the Development of panicLINK

THE DISCOVERY OF MY PANIC MISSION
Early in my career in 1975, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to train with the top experts in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  I had the good fortune to attend an Institute at the Temple University School of Medicine that was directed by the pioneer and founder of contemporary Behavior Therapy, Dr. Joseph Wolpe.

Here, I had an intensive learning experience with all of the world renowned experts in the field of CBT.

MY LIFE MISSION IS BORN
It was not until six years later, in 1981, when I joined the adjunct faculty in the Department of Family Practice at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse NY, that my mission was born. I had just finished my Internship in Medical Psychology at the University of Oregon Medical School.  I became driven to understand and treat all patients who were referred because their family practice doctor could not find any medical cause for their physical complaints (heart pounding, dizziness, head pressure, hot/cold spells, weakness, numbness, rubbery legs, etc.). Despite being assured by their physicians that they were in good physical health, these patients continued to worry that their symptoms were signs of some serious disease.

When I completed my initial evaluation, almost every patient fit my PANIC PROFILE!

MEDICATION IS NOT THE ANSWER
Panic attacks are a delayed reaction to a build up of chronic stress in people who absorb too much stress and don’t even realize they are on stress overload. Medication cannot address these areas.

Over and over again in nearly three decades in my panic practice, patients have told me that they wanted more than medication. Many were fearful of the idea of putting chemicals in their body. They worried about side effects and feared losing mental or physical control. Some worried so much they felt the side effects even before they ingested the drug; they worried themselves into perceived side effects that were actually additional panic symptoms.

IT’S NOT JUST “IN YOUR HEAD”
Patients being told by their physicians that they should “see someone” often feel as though the doctor things they are ‘making it up’ or that ‘it’s all in my head.’

Routinely, my patients expressed disappointment with previous psychological treatments that were focused on the root causes or historical factors without providing concrete, effective methods of taking control when panic strikes first.

Some patients felt so desperate they even resorted to self-help methods offered by other panic sufferers who proclaimed that they had cured themselves. While marginally helpful, most of my patients who tried these approaches reported that the most important benefit was the feeling that they were not alone, that they are normal and not going crazy. They were reassured to know they had an identifiable condition and millions of others felt just like them.

MY CAMPAIGN IN THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS – THE PANIC CHECKLIST
I began to realize that the medical community often did not recognize and make a diagnosis of panic disorder after all the physical tests came back within normal limits. In fact, one research study showed that only one out of eleven panic disorder patients were correctly diagnosed by their family doctor.

Too often, patients were told, “We can’t find anything. It is probably just stress.”  My patients told me they often feared that the reason the doctors couldn’t find anything was that they didn’t look hard enough. Patients told me they felt their complaints just weren’t taken seriously.

As a result, I began to spend a great deal of time meeting doctors to help them recognize panic disorder in their practices. In 1984, I developed The Panic Checklist, a brief self-diagnostic instrument designed to improve recognition of panic disorder in medical settings.

ARE YOU LIKE LOOKING IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES TO FIND THE ANSWER TO THE ‘WHY PANIC?’ QUESTION?

  • Did you go to the ER…maybe more than once?  My patients did.
  • Did you see doctor after doctor to find the answer and still wonder “Did they miss something?”  My patients did.
  • Did you wish for a drug-free answer to panic relief but tried medication because you thought there were no alternatives? Did you, then, worry about the side effects? My patients did.
  • Did you try generalist counseling and feel frustrated?  My patients did.
  • Did you try self-help programs and feel disappointed?  My patients did.

When I conducted research on my patient’s prior efforts to get help before they started the panicLINK Training, I discovered four things:

  1. Patients had often seen many medical doctors and felt more discouraged, not getting the answer to ‘Why Panic’?
  2. Patients often tried various medications despite fearing the side effects because they thought there were no effective non-drug alternatives.
  3. Many patients explored generalist counseling that was not helpful.
  4. Patients may have tried a variety of self help programs offered by panic sufferers like them… and  nothing had worked!

What a relief to know there is an effective non-drug, scientifically validated treatment available.

BUT IS THE TREATMENT READILY AVAILABLE?
Even though the National Institutes of Health endorsed cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a stand-alone, non-drug treatment for panic disorder in 1991, there are still relatively few doctors trained in this approach for treating panic disorder.

Early in 2002, patient after patient in my practice urged me to reproduce my program in a multimedia format, as if you were in my office listening to my words, so panic sufferers worldwide could benefit from panicLINK Training.

THE MAKING OF THE panicLINK TRAINING PROGRAM
Because the four-phase approach I used in my practice was not widely available, my patients urged me to formalize my panicLINK Training so that everyone in the panic community could use the multimedia program that had helped them get their lives back.

Years earlier, in 1994, I had dictated a rough draft of the panicLINK manual. In 2002, at my patients’ urgings, I recommitted myself to reproducing everything I ever said to over 5000 panic patients into a 12-session, four phase multimedia training program.

THE PRODUCTION OF THE panicLINK TRAINING – THE CREATION OF THE AUDIO PROGRAM
The first stage in making the panicLINK program more readily available came when I started making personalized audio programs for each of my patients. What a dramatic difference in the rate of improvement!  Reviewing the main principles of each session in an audio program on a daily basis was like having the doctor by your side and facilitated learning the panicLINK training method.

A daily dose or three times a day dose of Doctor B’s training method dramatically accelerated progress through the four phase program. Changing the old scripted record of terror and reprogramming the terror program, restructuring thinking, reactions and behaviors, rehearsing over and over again the correct approach…. This is the key to powerful and dramatic improvement.

EACH AUDIO SESSION HAS UP TO 19 INDIVIDUAL TRACK TITLES THAT REFERENCE THE EXACT TOPIC WITHIN THE SESSION FOR EASY REFERENCE
The audio program is like having an expert doctor by your side as needed to train you in the session by session methods of the panicLINK Training Program. Spend as much time as you need on each topic to let it sink in. The audio program was created individually for patients, who uniformly reported accelerated learning through reviewing the session’s key learning principles daily.

The audio program becomes a library of knowledge for you to refer to for the rest of your life, without even stepping into my office.

Now, for the first time, you have a chance to experience this comprehensive approach to treating panic disorder in the 4-phase, 12-session panicLINK program. Hear everything I said to over 5,000 patients, session by session, step by step, without ever stepping into my office. You have the audio program as a lifetime reference library. At any time, day or night, you can select the specific audio session you need, then review the track titles on the session to identify the specific information that applies. At the click of a button, begin a training session in the comfort of your own home.