Panic disorder is one of the most limiting conditions in a person’s life, the daily routine of those with panic disorder ends up lying in serious concerns about the timing of the next attack, so the person tends to restrict their activities. It’s true that drugs can help, but psychotherapy and exposure exercises are the treatments that really make a difference.
A panic attack is experienced as an intense and sudden terror accompanied by various physical and cognitive manifestations, the intense discomfort experienced during the first attack causes the person to begin to be afraid of being afraid, so he becomes alert and vigilant, fearing a new crisis.
- What the person fears is the appearance of some unpleasant sensation.
- However.
- Paradoxically.
- Fear itself can increase and overestimate any normal sensation of the body.
- Too much attention.
- Combined with a series of inappropriate thoughts.
- Ends up generating a new episode of panic.
The person ends up treating some harmless physical manifestations as dangerous and alarming, interprets palpitations as a sign of heart attack and shortness of breath as imminent asphyxiation, and sees vertigo as the preamble to fainting. During a panic attack, the person feels they are going crazy, losing control or even dying.
To avoid these unpleasant situations, initiate a series of avoidance strategies, try not to carry out activities or go to places that it associates with a panic attack, in addition it adopts safety behaviors, such as always carrying a bottle of water or sitting next to the exits of any transport or public place.
All this avoidance perpetuates the interpretation of the danger and deprives the person of the safety of their sensations, so the main element of the treatment is exposure to these bodily sensations, it is about causing these physical manifestations through different exercises so that the person becomes accustomed to them and stops fearing them.
Some of the most common preventive practices against a panic attack are:
In addition to getting used to bodily sensations, imaginative exposure exercises can also be positive, that is, those in which the person visualizes himself feeling the bodily sensations of panic and facing them, without running away or avoiding them.
In addition, the person must be gradually exposed to the places and situations he avoids, of course that exposure can beversive and unpleasant, however this proved to be the most effective intervention, with lasting results and even superior to those obtained with pharmacology. .