Read online "Fear, panic, phobia. Short-term therapy" by Nardone Giorgio

Panic fear (PS) also occurs as a separate condition, but more often it comes along with phobias, neuroses and panic attacks. Panic fears and phobias are ambiguous concepts. As you know, fears are useful for humans and help the human species survive. These are rational fears. The purpose of such fears is to warn a person about danger.

What is panic fear, its differences from rational fears

Panic fears are irrational in nature. Panic fear is a strong emotion accompanied by panic, anxiety and restlessness. Its main feature is that such fear does not arise as a consequence of a dangerous situation, but without cause. But the reason why PS appears can be found. But this reason is irrational, like fear itself. Phobias are often the cause of panic fear.

Phobias are a condition of a person during which he experiences strong, unreasonable fear when he finds himself in specific situations. For example, claustrophobia. A person who suffers from claustrophobia experiences severe panic and horror when entering an elevator—panic fear. In such situations, the irrationality of this emotion can be traced. For example, a person on a train panics, but there is no reason: the train did not move off the rails; no accident occurred and there are no other dangers either. In this situation, there is no reason to panic. Therefore, phobias, like PS, are irrational symptoms.

The main causes of phobias: social and hereditary factors. Separately, it is worth highlighting the fears that a person acquired as a result of negative life experiences. Phobias cause panic fears.

How to get rid of panic fear

A specialist will help you select medications from the following line:

beta blockers - allow you to interrupt somatic symptoms;
tranquilizers – help to localize and overcome anxiety in its vegetative manifestations;
antidepressants are mandatory in the treatment of phobias;
neuroleptics - fight severe disorders expressed by inappropriate behavior, aggression and suicidal tendencies.

Carefully! The medications must be taken strictly as prescribed and under the supervision of the attending physician.

Symptoms

Panic fear is the main manifestation of a panic attack. Other symptoms of panic fears and panic attacks:

fear of death;
fear and tightness;
chest pain;
cardiopalmus;
shortness of breath, tachycardia;
lump in the throat;
lack of air;
nausea;
muscle tension and trembling;
sweating and pallor;
dizziness;
abdominal cramps, nausea and even vomiting;
noise in ears;
severe anxiety;
bad feelings;
fear that panic may happen again anywhere or in similar situations.

Panic attacks, which require treatment, can develop into panic attacks over time. When a person constantly experiences panic fear, when he finds himself in certain situations, over time it can become a habit. A person will get used to experiencing panic fear in specific life circumstances. It’s difficult to get rid of any habits, especially panic fears that have turned into panic attacks. Although, panic attacks can occur before panic fears and even cause them.

Prevention

Understanding what panic fears are and what they mean means a lot when choosing methods to overcome them. Preventive measures include the following steps:

identification of factors that are prerequisites for the occurrence;
maintaining a healthy lifestyle (healthy lifestyle);
increasing stress resistance;
doing what you love.

A preventive action plan is developed by a psychotherapist exclusively individually for each person.

Appointment with a psychotherapist

Attention! Therapeutic measures include a course of psychotherapy and medication.

Stress and its consequences

The current age is full of noise, bustle, business - this puts pressure on the psyche of people, and some of them are not able to cope with it. Therefore, many people become familiar with a panic attack (PA) early. For some, panic occurs once. But sometimes panic recurs and then becomes a frequent occurrence. It becomes a habit to panic. PA is panic , uncontrollable fear, strong and causeless anxiety. During a panic attack, it is extremely difficult for a person to control himself. In such a state, a person is capable of falling into hysterics and screaming. This behavior appears inappropriate and often leads to injury. For example, someone is afraid to ride in cars. If panic occurs, this person is able to try to jump out of the car while it is moving.

PAs appear for various reasons. The current time is fertile ground for the development of this state: there is too much noise, information, demands and expectations. It is difficult for a person to cope with the amount of tension that covers him in waves day after day. Constant tension causes stress. When a person is exposed to stress for weeks, or even months, it can cause neurosis. Neurosis is often the main cause of PA and PS. To diagnose the presence of a panic attack, you need to become familiar with the main symptoms of this condition.

Possible causes of panic attacks

How to overcome fear and phobias yourself - ways to fight

A harbinger of an approaching panic attack can be not only an excited state, but also sudden lethargy and weakness. An attack can occur not only at the time of a combination of circumstances related to the phobia, but also have a time setting (at night or in the afternoon).

Significant causes of seizures may include the following:

experienced unrest and psycho-emotional stress;
negative thoughts;
hormonal disorders (menopause, pregnancy, childbirth, premenstrual syndrome);
the occurrence of a situation inherent in the type of phobia.

It can also be hereditary factors (genetic) or the result of a mental illness.

Attack process

Causes

Prerequisites and causes of panic fears and attacks:

Prolonged stressful situation

For example, giving up your feelings. It often happens that a person considers the situation unfair and wants to speak out, but restrains himself, remains silent and “swallows” his emotion. But these emotions do not disappear anywhere, but remain in a person and accumulate. A person is in constant tension and stress.

Intrapersonal conflict

It occurs most often when duty and desires contradict each other. For example, after graduating from school, a boy wants to go to study as a journalist, but his parents insist on studying economics. The son agrees with his parents in order to be a good child and not upset mom and dad.

Now he is already a student, every day he goes to classes he hates, and, as before, he dreams of becoming a journalist. He understands that after training, his parents will want him to get a job as an economist. For a young man, this means never becoming what he dreams of. The boy sees only one way out - to enter into an alleged conflict with his parents in order to defend his desire and right to manage his life.

The problem is that he cannot do this because of his inner beliefs (which were raised by his parents) that he must always be a good and obedient boy in everything. According to this belief, to live by your principles, values and needs is to be a bad person and son. Therefore, the boy follows the path of least resistance - to do what is expected of him. The main danger is that such a boy will get used to using this model of behavior further in life. This will cause more and more internal conflicts, and this is a direct path to neurosis.

Benefit from illness

No matter how strange it may seem, panic fears can be beneficial. When too much is demanded from a person (most often by close people), but the person is not able to give it, for various reasons. Then suffering from panic attacks can be a kind of excuse for not taking any action.

Neurosis

It is neurosis that causes groundless panic, but the symptom must be treated first. As a last resort, you can carry out the work comprehensively - treat both panic fears and neurosis. It is very difficult to treat only the cause, since panic fears will interfere with adequately perceiving reality and the task will become much more difficult.

Your own way of escape

Living without fear is entirely possible, even if you have been diagnosed with panic attacks. The sooner you begin to take active steps to overcome them, the higher the likelihood that fear attacks will not activate existing phobias, complexes and will not contribute to the development of anxiety or depression.

For the sake of fairness, we note that the process of full recovery is long, it requires effort from a person on several levels at once. This is due to the fact that seizures affect the psychological and physiological components of the personality.

Physiology

Basic recommendations regarding the physiological side:

Improving health on a physical and mental level, strengthening the nervous and muscular systems. It has been proven that the worse the physical condition of a person’s body, the harder it is for him to process stress. Accumulated nervous experiences, in turn, can find expression in unreasonable fears.
It is recommended to start by giving up bad habits and undergoing a general examination in order to identify possible chronic diseases and concentrate on their treatment. It would not be amiss to take a vitamin course to strengthen the nervous system in order to increase its resistance to environmental influences.
Sports activities must be included in the usual rhythm. Moreover, it is not so much the intensity that is important, but the consistency and regularity of training. Physical activity takes away excess energy and helps relieve nervous tension. Even if exercise does not completely eliminate panic attacks, it significantly weakens them. They turn them into experiences of mild anxiety.
Sleep and wakefulness should be adjusted so that a person wakes up and goes to bed at approximately the same time every day. Sleep is the main source of replenishment of physical and mental energy. Its stability and predictability removes one stress factor from the whole organism.
Systematization of your diet helps get rid of the chemical causes that stimulate attacks of fear. Various energy drinks (tea, coffee, alcohol, sweet soda and energy drinks) are contraindicated. They stimulate the appearance of vegetative signs of fear. Our nervous system is designed in such a way that if all organs work as if in fear (increased blood pressure, increased heart rate), then the brain regards this as a feeling of anxiety or even horror. Carbohydrates and sugar perform approximately the same function, as well as a dense meal immediately before bed.

Many people find it helpful to follow recommendations regarding their physical condition, and often it is enough to adjust one point and panic attacks disappear. Thus, a person who has a chronic lack of sleep, having slept in good conditions, can completely forget about the problem of emerging fears.

Read these articles about a healthy lifestyle.

Psychology

Performing actions that provide psychological regulation is usually more difficult. However, they still need to be performed, especially if the root cause is not physiological.

Tips for getting rid of attacks of fear from a psychological point of view:

Identify and eliminate stress factors, the accumulation of which leads to destabilization of the nervous system and, as a consequence, to the emergence of fears. Panic attacks can be born against the background of unlived experiences. Or as a defensive reaction to conditions that are psychologically intolerable. In this context, you can balance your diet as much as you like. But if a person continues to be in frustrating circumstances, then panic attacks will return. Naturally, it is impossible to provide yourself with a stress-free life, but it is necessary to solve or distance yourself from the most traumatic problems. If the problem is that you can't forget the past, then here is a good free course.
Work with existing specific fears. The fewer unprocessed phobias a person has, the less likely it is that unreasonable experiences will arise. In this case, they simply have nothing to cling to. In addition, by periodically coping with old fears, confidence in one’s own ability to overcome new ones is formed, resilience and a resolution strategy are developed.
A common variant of the disease is the fear of fear, i.e. new attacks. The best advice for overcoming it is to concentrate on your experiences in the present moment. You can use rationalization techniques and draw up an action plan in case such a condition occurs. Moreover, this plan needs to be drawn up only once and immediately return to reality, and not scroll through it in your head while waiting for implementation. Be sure that at the right moment you will remember everything.
Various sedatives and infusions can help. But! They cannot be prescribed independently, but can only be taken on the recommendation of a doctor. It is also good to engage in various relaxing practices - meditation, yoga, swimming, walks in the park or forest, listening to classical music, etc.

If independent regulation of the psychological state does not produce results or working with fears reaches a dead end, you need to seek help from a specialist - a psychotherapist. It usually takes 1 to 5 sessions to see noticeable improvements.

At-risk groups

The most susceptible to PA and PS are:

Melancholic people. Their psyche is quite weak and susceptible to negative situations. Therefore, melancholic people are the first at risk.
People with a strong sense of responsibility. Such individuals most often do not know how and cannot relax, so they remain tense for a long time.
Holders of bad habits, as well as people leading a sedentary lifestyle.
People living for a long time in greenhouse conditions. This lifestyle can make a person sensitive to the slightest stress. People who live busy lives are more resistant to stress, as they have to deal with it regularly. Therefore, a kind of immunity to stressful situations arises.

People who are at risk need to take preventive measures:

Oxygen. Take long walks more often to breathe fresh air.
Adrenalin. Exercise moderately, play active games, travel, communicate.
Healthy lifestyle.
Develop individual ways to deal with stress.
Listen to calm relaxing music.
Be at peace with yourself so that intrapersonal conflicts arise less often.

Most people suffering from this disease prefer to treat panic attacks on their own. This can be done. The main thing to remember is that before self-medicating, you should take certain measures: get examined in a hospital and rule out false symptoms of panic attacks. First of all, it is necessary to do an examination and check the functioning of the thyroid gland and brain, as well as the functioning of the adrenal glands and the state of the cardiovascular system. If the test results show that there are no problems, then we can talk about a disease such as PA and begin treatment.

Why does a panic attack occur?

A panic attack has real or fictitious causes.
Real ones, as a rule, are associated with experiences and mental disorders. If a person has been subjected to severe stress, he may experience panic fears. Unlike true ones, fictitious reasons may be associated with some kind of internal fear. Sometimes panic may occur in a person who is in the subway or other crowded place. Attacks of this type occur spontaneously, they are characterized not only by panic, but also by physiological symptoms. In any case, you need to fight panic. Untimely or illiterate treatment leads to chronic disorders. Serious illnesses arise against the background of such disorders.

Mental disorders associated with panic attacks are treated by a psychotherapist. If the treatment is successful, the alarming symptoms disappear and will not bother you in the future. You need to overcome a panic attack on your own. You need to regain control over the activities of your own psyche. Not only psychotherapy helps in the fight against mental disorders; breathing exercises and moderate physical activity are also effective. Various methods are used in treatment, the purpose of their influence is to calm the patient and inspire him that attacks of fear are not life-threatening.

Fight panic using different methods! You should lead a healthy lifestyle and give up all bad habits. It is important to avoid stress: they are the main predisposing factors to such disorders.

My own psychologist

When a person is overcome by panic, there is no point in calling an ambulance. There are ways to quickly relieve panic attacks.

Ways to quickly relieve a panic attack:

Breathing exercises. When a person is overcome by fear, you need to start slowly inhaling and exhaling air.
Muscle relaxation. You need to tense your muscles, for example your arms, then relax them. You need to repeat several times until it becomes easier. This exercise is done to shift the focus of attention and distract from the surging panic.
Visualization. Turn on your imagination and imagine some beautiful and calm place where it would be nice to relax, unwind, enjoy nature, peace and quiet.
Affirmations (self-hypnosis). For example, repeat mentally or out loud the following phrases: “I may be nervous, but I can handle this situation”; “These are just my thoughts, but in reality everything is fine”; “These sensations are safe for me,” etc. It is better to combine breathing exercises and affirmations.

The methods described above will help cope with a panic attack, but temporarily. To get rid of panic fears forever, you need comprehensive work on yourself.

How to overcome fear

specifics / How to overcome fear Author: K. Alekseev

In a critical situation, you have only two reliable allies - calmness and self-confidence.

It sounds correct and simple, but in reality this is perhaps the most difficult task - to remain calm during an attack. In life, criminals most often attack precisely when a person is neither psychologically nor physically ready for battle. Such suddenness leads to the fact that the attacked person is lost, falls into a stupor and is unable to defend himself. The surprise of the attack and fear constrain movements, and the ability to provide some kind of resistance is completely lost. Moreover, the person being attacked may well be physically developed and have the necessary knowledge. In another situation, he could easily put up decent resistance, but surprise negates all advantages. What can we say about the common man, for whom a fight is something terrible.

In a word, in order to more or less successfully resist hooligans in a dark alley, the first thing you need to do is learn to get out of the stupor into which an unexpected attack plunges you. I repeat, this is not at all easy. This may be the hardest thing you have to learn to do.

And there are no wonderful recipes here, unfortunately. That is, there are a lot of recommendations, that’s no problem. But there are no people who can snap their fingers and stop worrying. Those methods that really work require some effort on your part. And not just one-time efforts, but regular ones. Essentially, it should be the same workout as when building muscle mass. Only in this case, your brain is trained, not your muscles.

So, firstly, it is necessary to prepare in advance for a possible attack. No, no appeals to psychics, no astrological forecasts. Everything is much simpler. At home, lying on the couch, while traveling on public transport, while walking - it doesn’t matter where exactly - replay a hypothetical attack situation in your head. Yes, yes, just use your imagination. Start by imagining yourself, say, returning home late at night. Deserted street, rare lanterns, black archway. You walk your usual route, looking forward to a hearty dinner and a relaxing evening in front of the TV. But when you turn into your courtyard, you suddenly see the lights of cigarettes, hear how the conversation fades away when you appear, and watch with excitement as gloomy guys head in your direction. Did you imagine? Well, now try to scroll through your head all the possible actions both on your part and on the part of your opponents. All of them and their own lines, movements, emotions - everything down to the smallest detail. What do your enemies look like, what are they wearing, what are their voices, how old are they? The more vividly you imagine all this, the better. Turn this situation around in your head this way and that. A preliminary “attack”, a swift attack without any conversation, a simple beating or an attempted robbery... What will you answer? What will you do in this or that situation? In short, imagine everything your imagination is capable of. Only one condition: the picture must be realistic. It’s very pleasant to imagine how you dashingly sweep away a dozen world boxing champions, but it’s ineffective, and you won’t be able to escape a possible stupor in this way. So no fake heroism. If you've spent your whole life reading books and can't do seven push-ups, there's no point in making yourself a superhero in your dreams. It’s better to think about where you can run away from the gopniks or who and how you will call for help.

In short, there are two rules: maximum detail of the presented situation and maximum realism. The point is not to calculate all possible options and then, in a critical situation, act according to a pre-drawn program. The main task of this exercise is to accustom your head to such harsh pictures. By the way, the samurai indulged in this - in order to get used to the thought of death, they imagined their own death many times every day. It worked. At the moment of truth, a person acted almost without thinking. So it is here. Of course, you cannot get rid of fear completely, but you can accustom yourself to it. And this is already half the battle.

As you yourself understand, you need to do this more than once or twice. This must be done daily, like vigorous samurai. And not just once a day. Finding yourself in an unfamiliar place, figure out what you will do if you are attacked. Where will you run, what available items will you use for defense, what position will you try to take, and so on. An attack in transport, at the entrance, in the park, in the yard, on the street, in a store - mentally you must survive the attack wherever possible.

Another option for preparing for battle in advance is meditation, which is often used in martial arts. My coach liked to do this exercise at the end of every workout. Bot how it happened:

We, exhausted, exhausted after a hard workout, sit on the floor with our eyes closed. A coach walks between the rows and says something like this:

“Imagine cold, inaccessible rocks. Only stone and snow. You are running up a narrow mountain path. You are very tired, your whole body hurts. Cold rain and wind that knocks you off your feet. You want to fall and just lie there, you have almost no strength left. But four figures in dark cloaks are relentlessly following you. They should kill you. This is their only goal. They don't feel any emotions. These are human automatons trained to kill. You can't see their faces hidden by their hoods. They are gaining on you. They are cheerful and full of strength. Dark silhouettes behind a veil of rain, climbing the rocks.

And now you find yourself on a small flat area. On one side there is a sheer wall of stone, on the other there is a bottomless abyss. You have nowhere to run. Any minute now, your enemies will appear around the corner... (Here there was a short pause.) Here they are - four figures in cloaks! You must fight or die! Get up!”

All this was said calmly and rather quietly, and in the last phrases the voice gradually rose on the word “stand up” and turned into a scream, accompanied by a loud bang. We had to clap with a battle cry to stand up and strike, putting all our strength into it.

I must say that already at the fifth such meditation my blood was literally boiling with adrenaline. There was no sign of any fatigue after a hard workout. The pulse beats one hundred and fifty times per minute, and it really feels like you are saving your life.

The point of this exercise, again, is not to calculate some possibilities and your actions, no. The idea was for athletes to develop the skill of putting themselves in a state of full combat readiness in a matter of seconds. After all, combat readiness is not a combat stance. This is, first of all, a psychological attitude towards a fight, this is a willingness to sell your life dearly, this is an adrenaline attack. And I can assure you that this exercise coped with its task with a strong “A”. Then, in fact, a couple of breaths were enough for me to see the picture before my eyes, and for my body to come into a state of combat readiness. But again, you need to meditate regularly. Better - every day. And it is mandatory to end the meditation by taking a stance and striking with all your might. You really have to convince yourself that now you have to fight tooth and nail. To believe in this, to feel everything that a person feels when he finds himself on the brink of death. If after this exercise your pulse doesn’t go through the roof and your whole body doesn’t tremble from tension, it means you’re doing something wrong.

Go ahead. Secondly, to make it easier for yourself to get out of a stupor in an extreme situation, try to get to know your fear better. To begin with, just admit that you are afraid of a fight, afraid of gopniks, afraid of being beaten or maimed, afraid of falling in your own eyes if the outcome of the battle is unfavorable or in the eyes of your loved ones and friends. So just tell yourself: yes, I’m afraid of such and such. It's better to say it out loud. You can draw your fear. Even if you don't know how to draw at all. You are not painting a picture for an exhibition, but for yourself. While your fear, nameless and faceless, sits in you, suppressed by shame or empty boasting, it has enormous power over you. You need to bring him to the surface of consciousness, carefully examine him and call him by name - only then it will no longer be he who controls you, but you who will control him.

But meditation is meditation, and we must not forget about reality either.

So, thirdly, in order to cope with the stupor in a critical situation, you need to try to distract yourself from sad thoughts about the imminent beating of babies. The best way to do this is to turn off your emotions and turn on your reason. That’s right, by force of will, although it’s not easy. Switch your attention from your feelings and fantasies to reality. Assess the situation. Look around. Look for a way to escape or a handy weapon. Take a closer look at your opponents. Take a look at their capabilities. In short, keep your brain busy. Of course, you will have to work harder. But the faster you force yourself to think, the more chances you have to adequately respond to an attack or even attack quite effectively yourself. Here everything is often decided in a split second, so you can’t hesitate. As soon as things start to smell fried, immediately pull yourself together. There should be a kind of toggle switch in your head, by clicking it, you turn from a limply dropped, confused weakling into a calmly assessing the situation of a fighter. If you regularly and correctly performed the first two exercises, then there will be no problems with such a toggle switch.

Fourth... get your head back into the process. Usually, if we are afraid, we tend to exaggerate the threat. Fear has big eyes, as they say. The attacker seems to us not only to be half a head taller than he actually is, but at the same time we endow him with incredible physical strength, complete insensitivity to pain, attribute to him amazing fighting skills, and so on. In a word, we are driving ourselves into a trap. We inflate our fear to incredible proportions. But in fact, the attacker is an ordinary person of flesh and blood. He is just as afraid of pain; he can just as easily be maimed or knocked out. Even if he's bigger than you, so what? Large cabinets fall louder. And the chances that he will turn out to be a skilled hand-to-hand fighter are slim. Good athletes hone their skills in the gym, not in dark alleys. No, of course anything can happen. It happens that the gym is crowded for some stupid fighter, and he goes outside to practice the skills he acquired in the gym. But such citizens are not found very often. For the most part, street hooligans don’t really know how to fight, don’t have good health, drink, smoke, and win not by skill, but by numbers and arrogance. At the same time, just like you, they are afraid, worried, doubt the need to use force, and so on.

That is, whatever one may say, in front of you are people just like yourself. Whatever is bad for you is also bad for them. As soon as you remember this, or rather, force yourself to remember, fear will loosen its grip. He, of course, won’t go anywhere at all, and that’s not necessary. But he will stop shackling you. And this is the main thing.

In general, there is no need to get rid of fear. It is necessary in such a matter. Fear is caution, it is adrenaline, it is increased sensitivity to the slightest changes in the situation, it is an accelerated reaction. That is, fear, if it does not fill you completely, is an extremely useful and necessary thing. Moreover, what is important, it can be quite easily melted into anger - and this, fifthly..

Treatment of panic fears

Here are the most effective ways to help eliminate panic fears and attacks.

Awareness

It is necessary to realize why it is beneficial to have panic fears. For example, what a person does not want to do or wants, for example, to rest more. Panic fears help to accomplish this, being a kind of justification for one’s actions or lack thereof. Panic fears not only take a lot from a person, but can also give something that a person needs, but cannot get it directly.

For example, a girl with a melancholic type of temperament wants to sit at home, read books and work remotely. Her hobbies are also quite calm - visiting performances and exhibitions. The girl’s parents want her to be active and energetic: she travels a lot, communicates, and strives to take a prestigious position. But the girl doesn't need that. But due to her soft nature, she is not able to refuse her parents directly. Therefore, she develops neurosis, and then panic fears, which become an excuse for her inaction. Thanks to her illness, the girl is unable to live the life that is imposed on her. She's sick.

Important! A person suffering from PA needs to recognize the personal benefits of this condition.

Medicines

A person suffering from panic attacks should always carry medication that blocks panic attacks. These include: Validol, Corvalol, Glycised, infusions of motherwort and valerian. But you shouldn’t get carried away with medications. Medicines are needed not so much for the purpose of using them, but for the sake of peace of mind. A person will endure a panic attack much easier if he knows that he has an emergency remedy at hand. It should be used only if all other methods have failed.

Understanding the Cause of Fear

It is necessary to understand what exactly fear is at the moment when it manifests itself. What exactly is a person afraid of: suffocating, dying, seeming stupid, etc. You need to understand your basic fears in order to know what you have to deal with and what you have to work on.

Inclusion in frightening situations

This is psychologically difficult to do. For example, a person is afraid of flying on airplanes. This means that a person must get on a plane and fly. Perhaps PA will occur, or the person will experience severe discomfort. Such actions are necessary, as this will help cure obsessive fears once and for all. PA is a habit that has been developed for a specific action or situation. For example, a person is afraid of being in a crowd. Therefore, every time he finds himself in a crowd, the chance to experience PA again will increase. Therefore, you need to develop a new habit for these situations.

Keeping a Feelings Journal

This practical exercise will allow you to better understand your feelings and desires, as well as live a conscious life. It is advisable to take a situation that caused fear or discomfort. You need to describe in detail your thoughts, sensations and feelings that arose under those circumstances. This practice will help you get to know yourself better, your motives, values, needs, etc. Keeping a diary like this is especially useful for people suffering from neurosis.

Meditations

Panic attacks are fear of a situation that does not exist at the moment. This is one’s own fantasy, which a person himself strengthens with his negative thoughts and brings to the point of absurdity. Therefore, it is very important to be aware, to return to the present moment. Mindfulness can be learned through meditation, for example, as presented in this video:

Panic fears must be treated, as their consequences are very dangerous.

Is treatment necessary?

Panic fear is a reaction to stress that does not pose a threat to health or life , but requires treatment. Panic attacks are a psychological disorder. And the more often they are repeated, the closer is the development of neurotic pathology, which significantly spoils life. During such attacks, a person begins to avoid socialization and becomes withdrawn. The lifestyle is being replaced by an ascetic, homely one. Fear fetters and binds one to one place where, in the opinion of the individual, it is safer. This stage forms phobias - this is already a serious mental disorder.

Psychotherapy

Panic attacks can be complicated by serious consequences; the help of a specialist is simply necessary. The treatment of this pathology should be entrusted to an expert in his field - a psychotherapist or psychologist with sufficient experience. Only a specialist will be able to select the therapy that effectively affects the mechanism of the disease.

Important! You should not rely on self-resolution of the problem, on the help of friends, relatives, or rely on their advice if they do not have specialized education. You need to understand the mechanism of fear with the help of a specialist, and not drown the problem with alcohol or drugs, adding another one to the existing problem.

Consequences of panic fears

The most likely consequences of PS:

There will be more and more phobias.
Panic fears can cause physical harm to both the patient himself and those around him. For example, if a person driving a car panics.
Frequent panics can aggravate chronic diseases.
Frequent, severe and uncontrolled PA can cause suicide.
A person can become practically a hermit, but not because of an ideological worldview, but because of his fears. This is fraught with loss of work and family.

There are many ways to get rid of panic attacks on your own, and it is better to use them comprehensively, for at least three months. If a person feels that it will be difficult to cope with panic fears himself, then it is worth contacting a specialist who specializes in helping people suffering from panic fears, phobias and anxieties.

Panic attacks - ways to treat and combat the disease

It is impossible to get rid of panic attacks unless you calm down and eliminate the deep-seated fear of death as the basis for provoking stress and the corresponding physiological reaction. Prolonged stay in a state of fear, panic attacks deplete the body's resources and provoke a feeling of fatigue.

When a person undergoes the training “System-vector psychology” by Yuri Burlan, he begins to understand his natural inclinations, desires, realizes the nature of fear and the causes of a panic attack and gets the opportunity to get rid of panic attacks without medications.

To get rid of fear, you need to understand your psychological nature. The method of systemic psychoanalysis allows you to diagnose your true desires, understand the causes of conditions and see prospects for expressing your inner potential in society. Then the general psychological state changes. A person copes with difficulties more easily and overcomes stress. Understanding the cause of panic attacks will help you get rid of them easily. Fear, anxiety, depression disappear. The ability to enjoy life returns to a person.

Causes and consequences of phobias

The fear of being raped is most often not associated with a crime. Women are simply afraid to have sex or cannot experience pleasure from the process. Most phobias are childhood fears for which parents are to blame. The main causes of virginitisphobia:

Childhood memories . Parents who are overly concerned about their daughter’s sexual education can unknowingly cause her psychological trauma. From childhood, adults can tell a child that having sex is dangerous, confirming this with violent scenes from films. After a clear example, little girls leave with difficulty. In this case, the fear arises not of the violence itself, but of the consequences after it.
Experience of the past . Its culprit may be an unsuccessful sexual contact, from which what was expected was not at all what we received. If during the process the girl experienced pain, and the partner did not listen to her body, this may cause fear.
Violent acts of a sexual nature . Cases of rape are not uncommon. Victims withdraw into themselves and are afraid to tell specialists about the problem. After rape, fear of sex arises. For married women, fear can lead to family breakdown.

Girls with phobias feel unprotected in everyday life. They try in every possible way to avoid any contact with the opposite sex.

Therapeutic measures

Treatment depends on the cause and nature of the panic attack.

Panic is eliminated using hypnosuggestive psychotherapy methods, which are based on hypnosis and suggestion. The doctor’s goal is to formulate attitudes in the patient that would allow him to look at life differently. It is important to ensure that the patient responds correctly to somatic manifestations. When a person is in a hypnotic trance, the doctor provides verbal and non-verbal influence.

Treatment involves the use of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. What it is? This method is often used in the treatment of panic attacks. Its goal is to correct thought patterns and behavioral habits. It is important to eliminate the factors that trigger the mechanisms of such conditions. After the session, the subconscious fixes a belief model that allows you to better tolerate a pathological attack.

Drug therapy involves the use of drugs to relieve an attack. Taking medications must be combined with psychotherapy. It is important to say that medications alone will not cope with the problem. Treatment requires an integrated approach. What are tranquilizers? These are instant action products.

Antidepressants stimulate the nervous system, but also not for long. They give results after 2.5 weeks from the start of use. Treatment with these drugs lasts 3 months (the duration of therapy is necessarily determined by the doctor). Antidepressants are taken regularly, but are not used during an attack.

Therapy involves the use of B vitamins. They are necessary to strengthen the nervous system.

Compared to others, these drugs have a weak effect. They are not advisable to use to stop an attack.

If we talk about herbal preparations, they are used together with chemical psychotropic drugs. Herbal infusions in combination with medications provide the prevention of attacks in neurocirculatory dystonia.

“MOONWORN AND VALERIAN INDUCTION DO NOT HELP WITH A PANIC ATTACK.”

Fear, panic, phobiaGiorgio Nardone

Brief history of the intervention study

It is real realities that can be invented by
Karl Kraus
In 1983, on one of the usual working days, a gentleman who lived in a town near Arezzo approached me, who was a hopeless case of fears and obsessions that had haunted him for many years. He turned any minimal deviation in his bodily sensations into a clear sign of an unknown “mysterious illness.” He did not leave the house alone, afraid of suddenly feeling bad.

No matter what he read or what he watched on TV, any information relating to diseases or various types of pollution and contamination was perceived by him as directly related to him, and this caused him to have a panic attack. This man came to me after many years of pharmacological and psychoanalytic treatment, as well as after attempts at magical treatment with sorcerers, clairvoyants and religious practitioners.

I asked the gentleman why, after trying so many different types of treatment, he turned to me, so young and inexperienced, and told him that I could not help him much due to the complexity of his problem and my insignificant experience. Our first meeting, at which he told me about all his misfortunes, and I repeatedly stated about his unlikely recovery and especially that I had no illusions about my ability to help in his case, passed entirely in an atmosphere of pessimism and despondency . The gentleman returned to me a week later, and I saw a completely different person in front of me. Smiling and calm, he told me that for several days he had no more serious problems and that he felt more than ever eager to start a new life based on his new state of health and psychological charge. I was more surprised than he was at this change and, trying to understand how it could happen, I asked him to tell me what had happened over the past week. After leaving my office a week ago, the patient felt deeply depressed, hopeless, and wanting to end it all, and had also attempted suicide in the past. In the following days, these dark thoughts became more frequent. The patient reported that for two to three days he had been thinking about what his life would be like without any hope of recovery, and that in the midst of all these thoughts, he began to actively think about how to commit suicide. Having abandoned all the already tried methods (pharmacological poisoning, organizing a road accident), he thought about throwing himself under a train, perhaps because the railway passed next to his house. Thus, to quote his own words, when the sun was about to disappear below the horizon, he lay down on the tracks, imagining all the horrors of his existence, waiting for the “liberator” train to pass. But, strangely, at that moment he saw only all sorts of positive aspects of existence. In short, while he was lying on the tracks waiting for the train, he began to form a positive idea of existence, with the result that he entered a state of deep relaxation, giving in to all these mental images relating to a possible happy life, free from terrible symptoms. Suddenly the noise of an approaching train brought him out of this pleasant state. At the first moment he was almost surprised at where he was, and with one jerk he moved away from the rails. He returned to reality. He realized that at first he had been there to commit suicide, and now, as if by magic, he began to look at things with a new perspective, he felt like a different person who had no desire to die. From that moment on, as if by magic, all fears disappeared from his thoughts, he began to leave the house, looking for his old friends, whom he had left behind due to the isolation caused by his illness. He no longer felt all the same symptoms. He developed a great desire to live, and he began to look for a job, since due to his disorder he abandoned all professional activities.

I received this patient for several more months, “accompanying” his gradual, steady evolution towards a life free from fears and obsessive states, which ultimately led to a complete return to his personal and professional life. This clinical case completely confused my then ideas about therapy, since in the light of traditional psychotherapeutic concepts such a sudden and rapid recovery was not possible. This experience was a kind of “eureka moment” for me.

Then the works of Erickson, whose work at that time was considered “shamanism” and not serious therapy, came to my mind again. An idea arose and took hold in my mind about how wonderful it would be if, through systematically designed interventions, we could consciously induce rapid changes like this accidental change. In practice, I began to think that I would really like to study the possibility of interventions - in the case of so-called psychopathologies - of such a nature as to bring about, as if by magic, rapid and effective changes in the situation. With this idea in mind, I carefully re-read Erickson's work and discovered that his methods, which might seem, upon first incredulous reading, to be somewhat insufficiently systematic, have sophisticated strategic and apparently systematic tactical structures. This strategic sophistication and tactical systematicity, further scrutinized in the light of modern epistemology and humanities scholarship, I later found in the published work of Watzlawick and Weakland and their colleagues at the Palo Alto School. In short, thanks to this fortuitous and astonishing case of sudden recovery, my ideas were elastically opened to innovative perspectives regarding the formation of human problems and their solutions. Subsequently, upon careful study of the work of the Palo Alto group, it became obvious to me the possible correspondence of epistemological research in the natural sciences with research in the psychological and social sciences, while until that moment this seemed completely impossible in the light of comparisons of research methods in physics and natural sciences and traditional understanding of psychotherapy.

It was during this period that another episode, as pleasant as it was random, occurred. In July of that year, I had a woman in my office suffering from panic attacks and agoraphobia. For several years she was unable to leave the house alone, unaccompanied, and even at home she could not be alone without experiencing panic attacks. Since it was very hot, I got up and went to the window to open it; moving the curtain aside, I moved the crossbar from which it was hung. The crossbar came out of its support and fell straight on my head, hitting me hard with its pointed end. At first I tried not to attach much importance to what had happened, making fun of this grotesque episode, and returned to the table, continuing the conversation with the visitor. First I saw how she turned pale, and then I clearly felt that blood was flowing down my head. I got up, trying to calm her down, turning everything into a joke, went out to the toilet, looked at myself in the mirror and became convinced of the seriousness of the injury. I returned to the office and stated that it was necessary to go to the ambulance station to treat the wound. The patient immediately offered her services, forgetting that because of her phobia she had not driven a car for several years. She took me to the city hospital, where, again forgetting about her fears, she calmly accompanied me during all medical procedures, including disinfection and suturing, maintaining a patronizing and reassuring tone towards me. We then returned to the building where my office was located and where the patient's husband was waiting for us, who had come to pick her up at the end of the session. Stunned, he looked at his wife, who was calmly driving the car. However, he was even more surprised by the story about the events preceding our return, which, taking into account the “historical” problems of the patient’s fears, seemed not only amazing, but even like a miracle. However, the surprises for the husband did not end there. Indeed, in the days following the described episode, the patient began to leave the house alone, calmly driving a car, and gradually returning to all types of activities that she had abandoned because of her fears. We needed several more sessions to gradually accompany the patient on her excursions and in her gradual encounter with situations that had previously been considered frightening, until the final liberation from phobic symptoms.

As the reader understands perfectly well, this random and amazing episode became a reason for thinking about how wonderful it would be to be able, with the help of instructions consciously made to patients, to create specific situations similar to what happened, to create events that allow the patient to experience alternative ways of perceiving reality and reacting on her, and because of this are capable of imperceptibly leading him to overcome fear.

From this point on, my clinical studies and practice focused on experimental research and development of these types of "strategic" interventions: namely, short-term forms of therapy designed based on predetermined goals that can lead the subject to change in a way that makes little or no difference. be aware of the changes taking place. However, to implement such a project, a decisive emancipation from traditional concepts of psychotherapy and access to research into changes, interactions, and human communication was necessary. This search for knowledge brought me into direct contact as an “apprentice” with the MRI group in Palo Alto, and in particular with Paul Watzlawick, who, through concrete clinical experience and through innovative forms of epistemology, showed me how it was possible to construct in interaction "created realities" between people that can produce real effects.[2] Vaclavik and Weakland were excellent, strict, and at the same time encouraging supervisors in the study and development of a specific short-term therapy protocol for obsessive-phobic disorders. Thus, the study and clinical research of severe cases of fear, panic and phobias began to take concrete forms. The choice to deal with this particular clinical problem was dictated by several factors:

a) my dissatisfaction with the results achieved using traditional forms of psychotherapy;

b) at that time many patients with phobic disorders came to me, since the two strange episodes described served as good advertising for me, despite all my statements about my absolute innocence in the changes that had taken place;

c) the Brief Therapy model, developed at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) and applied to a wide variety of human problems, due to its tradition of family systems research, seemed to have little application in the case of such specific problems.

Likewise, other systems-based brief therapy models have not been particularly specialized in phobic disorders, while, in contrast, Erickson's work provides many examples of brief and strategic interventions for severe phobias and obsessions. This research approach, in addition to the attractive idea of becoming a “powerful healer” of severe forms of mental illness, carried with it ideas of novelty and originality that only increased my enthusiasm.

First of all, I set up my office in the classic style of Bateson's systems researchers: with television cameras and an observation room. I began making videotapes of my sessions with phobic patients, to whom I applied the MRI model of brief therapy with some modifications and initial adaptations that I made. After which I observed the process of therapeutic interaction and its effects again and again, paying special attention to the maneuvers and types of communication used. So I began to correct maneuvers that had proven to be ineffective and misleading, and to repeat what seemed to produce change in patients. Such experimentation has formed the leitmotif of my research-intervention work in phobic disorders. Indeed, it is the success or failure in stimulating change and the subsequent fine-tuning of the intervention procedure that has revealed “how” some dysfunctional human systems operate when problems are present and “how” such problems might be effectively and economically resolved. The first three years of my work consisted of constant experimentation with various techniques that seemed useful, borrowed from various therapeutic approaches, or were simply invented. Each therapeutic maneuver, in addition to its development, was analyzed from the point of view of its most effective methods of execution and means of communication. Very soon the usefulness of not only special “procedures” in the case of specific problems encountered in the course of therapy was revealed, but also the usefulness of a specific “processuality” of intervention (sequence of procedures), which exponentially increased the power of maneuvers and more economically led to the achievement of specified goals. goals.[3]

After these first three years of work, we arrived at the first version of a short-term therapy model specific to obsessive-phobic disorders, consisting of a series of specific therapeutic procedures and having a specific process. By analogy with a chess game, the therapeutic process was divided into stages and successive phases. Each phase had specific goals to achieve; for this reason, specific tactics and equally specific forms of therapeutic communication were conceived and developed. For this purpose, a whole series of possible maneuvers has been developed aimed at circumventing certain types of anticipated resistance exhibited by the patient.

By experimenting with the first two types of strategic protocol, we came to develop an intervention model that consists of a predetermined series of procedures and at the same time has flexibility and tactical adaptability to the envisaged development of the therapeutic interaction. Here again, an analogy is appropriate with how an experienced chess player acts, who, in order to bring the game to checkmate as quickly as possible, plans certain moves in advance, trying to anticipate the opponent’s counter-moves.

As is easy to understand, in order to develop a protocol for such an intervention, which later proved to be not only effective, but also anticipatory and heuristic, it took patient and labor-intensive empirical and experimental work to study the reactions characteristic of phobic patients to certain maneuvers, as well as the development of specific techniques that would allow us to achieve our goals in successive stages of therapy. The end result can be described as something similar to reaching checkmate in a chess game in a small number of moves. However, in comparison with chess, it very soon became clear to us how in therapy, unlike chess with its cold and mathematical game, the interpersonal relationship between therapist and patient/patients is the criterion that determines the final outcome. In this regard, Erickson's teaching on the use of suggestive methods within therapeutic communication and Watzlawick's teaching on the use of paradox, the “double constraint” and other techniques of pragmatic communication [4] have become an indispensable element for the development of strategic plans and specific therapeutic techniques. The model, expressed in two forms, one specific to obsession-based disorders and the other to phobia-based disorders, has been applied to more than 200 cases to date (although we consider only 152 as the subject of our study). cases in which follow-up was carried out for the purpose of delayed monitoring of effectiveness at intervals of three months, six months, one year after the end of therapy.The results obtained are undoubtedly satisfactory both in terms of their effectiveness (86% of positive outcomes) and their cost-effectiveness (average duration of therapy is 14 sessions).

Therefore, today we can consider the goal of developing a systematic, rigorous model of intervention to be considered achieved, which, planned and with less risk, causes the effect that was accidentally achieved in the two cited cases, that is, it constructs an “invented reality” in the therapeutic interaction, capable of producing specific effects in everyday life. patients' reality. The therapist who conducts this type of intervention is like the sage in the following parable: “Ali Baba left his sons an inheritance of 39 camels after his death. The will provided for the following division of property: the eldest son was to inherit half of the camels, the second son was to inherit a quarter, the third son was to inherit an eighth, and the youngest son was to inherit a tenth of the camels. The four brothers argued furiously among themselves because they could not come to an agreement. At this time, a wandering sage was passing through those parts, who was attracted by the dispute, and he almost magically solved the problem of the brothers. The sage added his own camel to the 39 camels that made up the inheritance, and began dividing the property under the puzzled glances of the brothers: he gave the eldest brother 20 camels, the second - 10, the third - 5, and the youngest - 4 camels. After which he mounted the remaining camel, which was his own, and set off on his wanderings” (Eigen, 1990, 140).

When solving a problem, the sage added one element necessary for the solution, and then took it back for himself, since after solving the problem this element was no longer needed. In the same way, in the case of phobic patients, something absolutely necessary for an effective and quick solution to the problem is added through the therapeutic interaction, and then this something is taken away again by the therapist at the end of therapy, because it is no longer needed. This type of intervention only appears to be “magical”, but in reality it is the fruit of the application of principles of high scientific rigor to the existence of problems and their solutions. These principles, when applied, involve creative adaptation to circumstances in order to be able to break the “vicious circle” that characterizes complex and self-perpetuating human problems. Moreover, as Bateson (1979) argued, “severity alone means death by paralysis, and imagination alone means madness.”