(page translated with Google translate)

Panic attacks can be a real disorder, an anxiety disorder. A crisis of panic attack can be recognized because the panic attacks are sudden, they do not seem to be caused by anything. They are characterized by fear and discomfort of a very high intensity. The sense of threat felt at that time is high, terror, fear of impending death, debilitating experience and highly destabilizing. The symptoms may vary and include trembling, shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, dizziness, hyperventilation, paresthesias (tingling sensation), tachycardia, feeling of suffocation or asphyxiation. often these symptoms mimic a heart attack and then they mistakenly think of it.

If the disorder of panic attacks is not treated, it can lead to very serious consequences. If we do not start an intelligent therapy, often it can also suffer from depression, you feel dissatisfied with everything and you are afraid to even leave the house. This will be to establish the so-called mechanism of "fear of fear". For the subject, the association of panic attack and the environment or the specific place in which it started the panic attack, it becomes almost a magical fact. This way you are doing is establishing a powerful vicious circle in which one has the illusion that if the person avoids the place or the environment in which he felt ill, can control the situation is so does not happen anything. An avoidance strategy, it will strengthen more and more.

Therefore, daily events in which the patient feels forced into a certain situation such as a banal means of transportation: subway, plane, car, elevator, and again, environments that force the patient to perceive themselves in a position with no way out as cinema, a traffic jam, a shopping center, or on the contrary, in environments too open where you feel lost and without reference points., as wicked highway.

The avoidance strategy initially, seems to work because the person lives the illusion of being able to control the problem by avoiding certain situations. Unfortunately, the initial relief was short-lived. In fact, gradually increase the "dangerous situations" to significantly limit the person's daily life and his life of relationship with others, which can, in some cases come to stay at home to avoid social gatherings. Everything becomes difficult, even the simplest actions and granted, such as going to work, take a walk, etc.

The fear of being afraid narrows the range of up to a minimum. In my clinical experience once in England I met a lady who after so many years of suffering had become unable to move even within his house, and so could no longer use his bedroom, but only the living room and overlooking the the garden where he lived, ate and slept washed.

This just described is an extremely serious case.

In most cases the person though suffering, he forces himself to go out, work, face a trip, but unfortunately lives everything with great distress and profound anguish. All this affect the quality of his life and takes away the pleasure to something that might be a pleasant experience. Apparently the person participates pleasant experience that could be a theater, cinema, or social gathering, but it is actually set in a parallel world that only he knows. If it manages to contain the anxiety, the person will feel bad but try to hide his condition. Unlike the anguish he will come to him in the stomach and throat, and the "fear of being afraid" will prevail, and will force him to leave the theater or the cinema, or friends. Apparently the person in the grip of this kind of anguish participates in the situation that is living but it is actually separated from the outside by a transparent glass. He does not listen to anything, it does not get the warmth and vibrancy of the external environment, it is only completely isolated, even if surrounded by people who show affection, can not perceive anything as saturated his anguished world. It's a terrible feeling but also harmless. That's the paradox, there is no danger, the patient will not die and will not be attacked. The paradox is that there are no dangers to the health or safety of the person, but this suffers horribly as never before in his life.

TREATING THE PANIC

Bodily manifestations of panic represent a crucial key to understanding to correctly interpret the discomfort of the subject. Ie it is through communication of the body that you can come to a deeper understanding of the terrible living conditions. The body is, therefore, our friend ready to take help. It is important to listen to what he wants to communicate just through the symptoms. Psychotherapeutic intervention great importance is given to the patient considered not as an isolated person from its social context, but as a person who has relationships with all its neighbors. So will its affective / loving and social relationships to guide us in the treatment of panic attacks.