Panic attacks
"Fear is the thing I am most afraid"
M. de Montaigne
How to solve quickly
Testimony of V. 27 years
As the evenings are all in my bed, turned on the TV and soft lighting. Suddenly I begin to feel a strong tug at the heart and something inexplicable that does not allow me to breathe.
The heart beats so strong that it seems to want to get out of my chest and my hands sweat, my whole body trembles, I do not know what to do, the breathing is more labored. I'm afraid to die! I try to get up slowly. My head is spinning, I feel faint and have severe nausea, which happens to me? Who can help? I am alone. I lay on my bed, I spend a few minutes another terrible. Now I seem to breathe better, perhaps the only thing to do is wait until daybreak, hoping that this terrible experience is not repeated. I thank my former patient V. useful for the testimony. V. has suffered from recurring panic attacks (almost daily) for 4 years but now is fine, now just a memory.
What is a panic attack?
The panic attack is a manifestation of intense fear (limited time) often associated with urgency to flee in the face of catastrophic events considered and obligations.
How to recognize a panic attack?
Symptoms reach their peak in a few minutes and can be somatic or cognitive: palpitations, sweating, trembling, dyspnea (breathing difficulty), or choking sensation, chest pain or discomfort, nausea, abdominal discomfort, dizziness, feeling "lightheaded "derealization (feelings of unreality), depersonalization (feeling of being" detached "from oneself), tingling or loss of the sense of touch, chills or hot flushes, fear of losing control or" going crazy ", fear of dying. When panic attacks are recurrent is called panic disorder.
Genesis of a panic attack
The panic attack is the result of a process of mind-body interaction that can move trigger at any time, following a potentially dangerous stimulus perception (Figure 1) or because of a thought about something threatening, real or imaginary (for es. "... if I felt bad here? I escape routes?"). In an instant, the physiological parameters (heart rate, blood pressure etc..) Rise sharply. The feeling of change, triggers thoughts and beliefs threatening to feed back further reactions in the body conveying alarm that lead to even higher psychophysiological reactions, and so on. Within minutes, we arrive at a "tilt" of mind represented by the attack of panic itself.
How to care?
Usually the patient is directed to a specialist when panic attacks become so frequent that they interfere with normal daily activities. Other times, asking for help for the implications of the disorder: depression, drug abuse, social withdrawal, partial or complete inability to face the outside world. Today there is a wide range of effective psychotherapy can help people suffering from panic attacks, but few are those that guarantee efficiency criteria (efficiency is the ability to produce effects in the short term), but by no means negligible because there is considerable difference between panic heal heal in 3 months and 3 years. It 'important that the patient knows how to choose, also helped by their doctor, the best course of treatment.
The strategic approach in the short years it has been particularly effective (over 90% of successful cases) and efficient in the treatment of panic disorder syndrome.
In short, the strategic approach is based on the use of short therapeutic stratagems that already from the first sessions produce the release of the symptoms leading the patient to experiment with the overcoming of the problem concretely.
Posted in Psychology , Brief Therapy 
