Paul Salkovskis is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science. He is also Clinical Director of the Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma

In panic disorder people have these episodes often coming out of the blue of really intense anxiety with a lot of physical symptoms, as opposed to more general worry where you might be concerned with your bank balance or worried about a whole range of events. That’s something called “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” which is different. Panic Disorder is these episodes of really intense anxiety, a lot of physical sensations and this sense of absolute dread that some really horrible thing is going to happen.

Panic Attacks are episodes of sudden, often unexpected intense anxiety which goes along with a whole range of physical sensations like, your heart pounding, being short of breath, sick, numbness, tingling, feeling you’ll lose control and die and so on. They are extremely alarming.

Typically people who suffer panic attacks seek help early. They’re often seeking help for something else, they think they’re having a heart attack or  they think they are having a stroke. This makes it rather easy to identify that most of them are anxiety disorders.

Some people may regard panic as being a relatively trivial problem, it’s just anxiety after all. However, it is known that at its most extreme, it leads to complete disruption of people’s lives. People become housebound for many years, 20 – 30 years.

Filed under: Panic Attack Symptoms

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!