Panic Disorder - The Mind in Conflict

Panic Disorder - The Mind in Conflict

A person experiencing a panic attack feels an undeniable wave of fear for no particular reason. The individual's heart begins to beat rapidly, his chest hurts and it becomes more and more difficult to breathe; At this point, the individual believes they are having a heart attack and will die if they do not receive appropriate intervention.

One patient defined his symptoms as follows: I'm so scared; Every time I start going out I get this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and I'm afraid that another panic attack is coming or that some other unknown terrible thing will happen to me or someone in my family. “

Panic attacks usually last no more than a few minutes, but it can be the worst condition a person can experience. People who have experienced an attack have others. Those who experience repeated seizures or have increased fear of another seizure are likely to have developed panic disorder.

Panic disorder is a serious health problem in the United States. Recent studies have concluded that approximately three million people will experience panic attacks at some point in their lives. The symptom is significantly different from other types of anxiety. Panic attacks are very sudden and often unexpected, seem unprovoked and are often deactivated.

Panic attacks can occur at any time, even while you are sleeping. A seizure often occurs within ten minutes, but some symptoms can last much longer.

What Causes Panic Attacks: And How Do You Treat Panic Disorder?

One approach to understanding the cause of panic disorder is that the body is normalAlarm systemThe mental and physical mechanisms that allow a person to respond to a threat are usually triggered unnecessarily when there is no real danger in the immediate environment. Most medical studies cannot explain exactly why this happens.

However, several psychological studies have shown that the root cause of panic disorder can begin at an emotional or physical level, or can be both. The feeling of heightened anxiety always starts with onetriggerthat initiates thebattleorFlightResponse from the limbic system. For example, the first hint of obvious danger to your brain chemistry, blood hormones, and cellular metabolism takes effect.

If you suffer from chronic anxiety disorder over time, your anxiety symptoms may be triggered by less and less severe events as the limbic system has become sensitized to a strong responsepanickedWay.

For example, if you were constantly yelled at as a child; As an adult, you may feel anxious when there is the possibility of confrontation with an authority figure. and you may take extreme measures to avoid such a confrontation, even in a situation as harmless as refusing a simple request from a family member or authority figure. At this point, your conscious mind has lost sight of the connection between your current feeling and your past emotional experience. You now have no idea why you are feelingpanickedabout something of so little importance.

Past emotional experience

Early emotional experiences are the birthplace for the development of panic disorder. The experience could have been early childhood trauma, such as the death of a parent, divorce, child abuse, constant criticism, abandonment, deprivation, or a highly emotional family social environment; very anxious parents, including alcoholic and drug addicted parents.

Childhood is a time of little power and control. When bad things happen to children, their coping mechanisms are not fully developed. They are unable to process what has happened in a healthy way and move on. In a very real sense, these negative childhood experiences are trapped deep within. As adults, these hidden problems often surface as symptoms of anxiety. It can be difficult to connect what triggers your panic state to your previous experiences. but there is always a link.

Past experience has taught me that you should not attempt to treat panic disorder unless you are prepared to approach it from many angles. This approach can be time-consuming and emotionally intense, which conventional practitioners too often avoid. Instead, antidepressants are handed out like candy to panic sufferers to calm their physical symptoms. However, it doesn't matter what type of panic symptoms you are experiencing. You must address the emotional component if symptom reduction is to be achieved.

Type of treatment

There are a variety of treatments for panic disorder, including several effective psychopharmacological interventions and specific forms of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy for panic disorders is just as important as medication intervention. Several studies show that the combination of medication and psychotherapy is more effective for panic disorder than either intervention alone.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is widely recognized as a superior form of psychotherapy. CBT is designed to help people with panic disorder identify and reduce irrational thoughts and behaviors that increase panic symptoms.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is another form of intervention that is rarely mentioned as an appropriate treatment for panic disorder. In fact, many therapists strongly reject the idea of ​​using psychodynamic techniques as an intervention to reduce symptoms associated with panic disorder.

What sets psychodynamic therapists apart from the rest is their ability to recognize an undeniable fact: panic states can appear symptomatically as the identical weather from which they ariseneuroticstate or of amanic depressiveCondition.

Clinical research has shown that neurotic panic states should be treated exclusively with psychotherapy. and manic-depressive states should be treated with one of the many effective antidepressants. Proper differential diagnosis is the super highway to symptom reduction for all mental health disorders, including panic disorder.

Treating panic disorders with psychodynamic techniques

although studies have shown the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral and psychopharmacological treatments; Many patients do not respond positively to these interventions or have had persistent or recurrent symptoms. Given the high cost and recurrence of panic disorder, there is a need to explore treatment options.

Psychoanalytic techniques are commonly used to treat panic disorder but have rarely been exposed to the rigor of scientific research procedures. Such a study would highlight and describe the psychoanalytic concepts for understanding panic disorder. At the same time, a more “client-friendly” psychodynamic psychotherapy for panic disorders is proposedpanic-orientedPsychodynamic psychotherapy.

The potential benefit of this form of therapy is based on the belief that panic patients have a psychological vulnerability to panic disorder, which is associated with personality disorders, relationship problems, difficulty tolerating and defining internal emotional experiences, and unconscious conflicts over separation, anger, and sexuality. Psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses more, but not exclusively, on these impairments than other therapies, including psychopharmacology, potentially reducing susceptibility to recurrence of symptoms.

Unconscious feelings

According to psychoanalytic theory, panic symptoms are at least partly based on unconscious fantasies and affects. In fact, both clinical and research observations suggest that panic sufferers have particular difficulty with feelings of anger and fantasies, such as: B. desire for revenge. These desires often pose a threat to important loved ones, especially those with whom we are close. therefore triggers a panic attack.

Patients are often unaware of the power of these affects and the vindictive fantasies that accompany them. Becoming aware of these negative aspects of mental life and making them less threatening are important components of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Conclusion

Because panic disorder remains a major health problem in the United States, it is important to continue to develop an effective treatment approach. Panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy will be a useful alternative or complement to the cognitive-behavioral approach and medication. Psychodynamic therapy addresses intrapsychic conflicts, defense mechanisms, and developmental issues that other therapeutic methods are unlikely to focus on

The psychodynamic approach also addresses psychological factors that lead to susceptibility to a recurrent panic state or other difficulties associated with panic disorder. A complete and randomized controlled trial should provide further insight into the effectiveness of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy.

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