Attack panic treating via Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

A panic attack, a type of anxiety disorder, is generally a period wherein a person suddenly feels a combination of symptoms resulting in making him or her anxious.

Though it occurs often without visible causes, further studies point to many triggers like heredity, medications, drug withdrawal, alcohol, and serious illnesses.

Symptoms vary from one person to another, some of which are palpitations, sweating, shaking, nausea, and dizziness. Many are often caught unaware by this ailment. It may last for as short as 15 seconds to as long as 10 to 20 minutes. Though this may occur once, there is no reassurance that this will not happen again in the future.

Treatments are widely available to help people deal with the symptoms or the ailment itself. There are two major approaches that doctors take are: one, by cognitive behavioral therapy; and two, by taking medications. 

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Cognitive behavioral therapy is used in treating many disorders, one of which is anxiety disorders. It is regarded as the first line of treatment for a panic attack and the choice for patients not responding to medications.

In this therapy, a person is exposed gradually to the reason or cause of his fear. This is due to the theory that fear of something is conditioned in a person’s mind. If that person continually avoids the subject of his fear, he is then reinforcing that phobia. Thus, a person need to learn how not to be afraid of the stimulus. In this process, the goal is to find out how one’s thought process assesses and deals with the thoughts that cause alarm or fright.

The therapy starts with giving information about the problem and how the treatment is to be administered and then recreating in a controlled environment the symptoms one would feel. This is done for at least one minute, three to five times per day. It often takes weeks before a person begins to be desensitized and does not feel any alarm when experiencing a sudden onset of symptoms.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been found to have positive long terms effects to patients. Some people can be seen with relative improvements in about six to eight weeks. It has also been known to prevent relapses for clients who have discontinued their medications.

A study about benzodiazepine withdrawal showed that patients who underwent cognitive behavioral therapy had a higher success rate when put side by side to those patients who did not. When the two approaches are combined, it usually produces a more favorable result than when a person decides to use just one. And, as always with any medical treatment, it is best to consult with an experienced medical practitioner before making use of any mode of treatment.

And though relapses may occur, these can still be successfully treated. A panic attack may at first seem like a frightening experience, but treating the subsequent episodes should not be. With proper guidance from the physician, a person will be able to cope with its occurrence on his own.

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