What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & Why Does It Work for Panic Attacks?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a structured and proven effective method for treating panic attacks. For Panic Disorder, we use a treatment protocol developed by Dr. David Barlow and Michelle Craske, two of the foremost experts in the field of anxiety. The treatment protocol is a part of the well respected series, Treatments That Work. You can find more information on the Treatments That Work series here.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT, has been shown to be effective in helping you learn to effective ways to manage symptoms of panic and panic attacks, overcome your fear of panicking, and stop the avoidance that keeps you stuck.
This panic attack treatment is broken down into three phases and provides a very structured course for therapy. The first phase involves educating yourself to correct misconceptions about panic. This phase includes understanding how and why panic attacks are happening to you, understanding the cycle of panic and avoidance, and learning to take a step back and observe your panic attacks like a scientist.
The second phase begins with learning breathing skills and thinking skills. Learning correct breathing skills can help you begin to stop your anxiety from escalating to full blown panic, give you back your ability to think rationally (which goes out the window during panic), and allow your body to relax. The thinking skills will help you learn to challenge the anxious thoughts that feed your feelings of terror during a panic attack (such as “I’m about to have a heart attack!”). Together, we will practice these techniques until they become second nature to you.
The third phase of treatment is all about training your body to stop panicking. In this phase, we will identify all the different places, activities, and situations you’ve been avoiding out of fear that they will trigger a panic attack. Together, we will come up with a plan for you to get these things back, starting with the easiest ones first. As we go through the list, you can gain confidence each time you tackle one, setting you up to cope better and feel less anxious as you move on to the next. We continue down this path until you feel confident in your ability to go where you want and do what you want without worrying that panic will stop you.
This therapy can be incredibly powerful as a means of helping you learn to overcome panic attacks, to cope with your anxiety instead of fearing it, and get back to living your life.
We can help.
If you or someone you love is struggling with panic attacks, please reach out. We offer panic attack treatment with CBT Therapists in Orlando and online throughout the state of Florida. Call today or send us your info and we’ll reach out for a free consultation to see if one of our therapists would be a good fit.
