Panic Disorder

Fear is one of the six basic human emotions, with a clear evolutionary purpose: to help us respond to danger and survive. In Exposure Therapy, providers create a safe environment to intentionally “expose” their clients to objects, activities, or situations they fear.
Panic isn’t what you think it is. It’s not an attack at all, and that’s a misleading name for it. It’s you having an internal reaction of fear – your heart rate changes, your muscles tense up, your stomach feels bad, you have scary thoughts of calamities, and so on.
The headlines and the CDC report are indeed alarming, but they should serve as a wakeup call to all of us. Yes, we should think seriously about why we are seeing a steep decline in the mental health of teenage girls, but we have to come together now as parents, family, friends, educators, clinicians, providers, and as a society to support, enhance and establish more preventive measures for our youth.
A Q&A with ADAA Member Karen Cassiday, PhD, ACT answering community questions on overcoming agoraphobia.

This blog was originally posted on Ten Percent Happier on April 22, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission

Dr. Lindsay Israel

If you engage in some positive distracting activities during this crisis, then the flow of the day will move like a steady stream rather than a slow drip.

Karen Cassiday, PhD

What if you have the kind of anxiety that makes you feel trapped and panicky because of the stay at home orders due to COVID-19?

Shane G. Owens

College is typically a challenging experience with some expected highs and lows. For some it is also the time during which common mental health problems start. Because of this, you have to talk to your kid about mental health before school starts.

Reid Wilson, PhD, and Mark Pollack, MD

Updated October 2020