You CAN live panic-free.
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What is Your Symptom Orientation? You cannot have a panic attack unless you react with fear and dread to the normal bodily sensations of adrenaline, shortness of breath, dizziness, heart pounding, rubbery legs, chest tightness, disorientation, weakness, tingling, blurred vision, hot flashes, sweats and inner trembling. When you are in a panic state, you are […]
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The Natural Progression of Undiagnosed Panic Disorder * Susan, a 29 year old married nurse, was shopping in a nearby mall when all of a sudden, “Out of the Blue†She felt woozy. The dizzy spell and heat waves swept over her and she feared she would “faint on the spot.†When her lips, suddenly, […]
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Living Panic-Free Living panic-free is not a simple matter. Panic disorder is a complex condition. The causes are multi-factorial. Psychological, biological and interpersonal factors often combine over time building up to that first panic attack “Out of the Blue.†Panic episodes often wax and wane on their own, even without intervention. Oftentimes, just when you […]
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Anti-Panic Medication Can Interfere With the Effectiveness of CBT A variety of pharmacological treatments (anti-depressants and minor tranquilizers) have been shown to be effective in regulating panic attacks. However, Anthony and Swinson (2000) reviewed research which show that the addition of anti-panic medications to Cognitive Behavioral Treatment (CBT) for panic disorder can diminish the effectiveness […]
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Relaxation Therapy Triggers More Panic Attacks From 1981-1983, when I was on the Faculty in the Department of Family Practice at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY, I quickly evolved the fundamental components of panicLINK. Intuitively, I felt relaxation training would NOT be a critical component in the treatment of panic disorder. Wolpe (1976) introduced […]
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Sarah* and the Fear of Losing Control I just received an urgent call from Sarah, a 35 year old married mother of three children. Yesterday, she watched a news broadcast showing a “perfectly normal mother†who snapped, went beserk and drove her car into a nearby river, drowning herself and her three children. Sarah was […]
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Panic patients are suddenly hit with a barrage of physical symptoms, “Out of the Blueâ€. When dizziness, heart pounding, shortness of breath, weakness, numbness in the hands and feet, and hot cold spells strike without apparent cause, panic sufferers frequently seek medical evaluations (emergency rooms, family doctors) to determine the cause. Ballenger (1987) states that […]
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Early Treatment Studies The first psychological treatment studies for agoraphobia centered on graduated invivo exposure alone to the feared situation (Hand, LaMontagne and Marks, 1974). That is, the agoraphobic patients were instructed to reenter the situations they had been avoiding. Agoraphobia is a secondary complication of panic attacks. The agoraphobic patient utilizes escape and avoidance […]
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Cognitive Models of Panic Disorder David Clark (1986) and Aaron Beck (1989) view panic attacks as a catastrophic misinterpretation of harmless bodily sensations. For example, a patient notices an increase in his heart rate and thinks the increased heart race is a sign of a heart attack. The alarming thought, “I am having a heart […]
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I just stepped out of Session 1 with “Bill” (not his real name). Like many of my patients, Bill had been advised to avoid caffeine because he suffers from anxiety attack symptoms. He told me that recently he had a powerful surge of anxiety symptoms right after drinking a cup of coffee. Here is Bill’s […]
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