Anxiety Panic Attack & Agoraphobia--impact Of Disappointments

This article is based on a technique that demonstrated an 80% success rate in eliminating symptoms of anxiety panic attack. This is a description of the fourth session with the first client, Jane, with whom this technique was discovered. Six months prior to the onset of agoraphobia panic attacks, Jane had uprooted her family and moved from Florida to NJ to be with her sisters and mother. I had in-home sessions with her as she was house-ridden.

Jane's homework was to practice observing various objects we chose at randompen, drinking glass, table At the beginning of the session, I asked her to read me her written observations. Even with the focus on observation, she noticed how easy it was to still come to conclusionstable legs, clip She was totally fascinated with the new world of Observation and found it relaxing to do.

I had her on the path, to recovery and now I wanted to shift to the cause of the alarm reaction of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). The goal was to refocushave her unequivocally understand that anytime she experienced what in the past she called anxiety her subconscious merely wanted to run away from a disappointment or a reminder of a disappointment. To take it home, I asked her to make a list of her disappointments. She told me I didn't have enough paper. She started describing the disappointing symptoms and how disappointing it is to always be in situations where she might feel them. I guided her away from these situational disappointments and onto her life's disappointments. She wrote and wrote and then started listing disappointments of which she was fearful in the future. She knew her husband loved her, yet she was fearful that he'd get fed up with her antics and divorce her.

By now generalization (fear was spreading everywhere) had begun and it was important for her to understand that it wasn't the lights in the store that were going to attack her, but they merely reminded her that she had a disappointment. She acknowledged that the problem just showed up with no reason and then she began wondering when it was going to happen again. And just as she feared, it started happening whenever she feared it wouldopen spaces, while driving, in stores She practically became a prisoner in her home and could only go out if someone else drove her. Strangely, it was easier to feel the anxiety than it was to deal with the disappointmentsat least with all the anxiety she had no time to deal with her disappointments.

She asked about when we were going to do biofeedback again and I informed her that at this time, biofeedback would only contribute to activation of her fight/flight. I wanted her to observe tension rather than try to get rid of it. In fact observation is the second step to change. Once she learns to make it OK to have tension in her chest muscles and her breathing, it could stop at that point with no need to kick it into Clara Weekes' third stage.

I went on to share that the first step to change is to own the problem. To know that somehow she contributed to it. I asked her if she'd like to run off from her son, husband, sisters, mother to Hawaii and start all over. She laughed and said, No, I'd probably screw it up again. But the bottom line was that she wouldn't abandon her familyshe was too responsible. She was also a perfectionist and wanted things done right. In fact it was in the nature of her personality that contributed to her developing the flight responseand her lack of understanding of the GAS contributed to her jumping to conclusions.

This all sounded too good to be true. I left her with a renewed outlook and more observation homework plus a challenge to refocus onto her actual disappointmentsher son's issues, dealing with a change in relationship with her mother and sisters, fear of telling her husband the truth about why she was no happier in NJ than she was in Florida.

If you suffer from anxiety panic attack, make a list of your life's disappointments? A bit depressing, right? Why am I using Jane's experience?

Because it's the model upon which this program is based. I've worked with dozens and dozens of clients since Jane and in "every" case there were dramatic parallels with respect to personality, accumulation of disappointments, nutrition, assumptions or conclusions and each found peace from symptoms running their lives.

Regardless of what you've been told, using a revolutionary technique, anxiety panic attack and agoraphobia is only a disease of ignorance and can be gotten rid of through understanding of a few basic concepts!