At the end of psychological therapy for panic attacks, one patient ruefully said “before, I wanted everything to be perfect – nearly every day I was wanting to stay on this happy level all the time … now I’ve come to the regrettable conclusion that ups and downs are normal.”
Before, the attempt to suppress negative feelings and the striving to feel good all the time put her under enormous strain. Could this sort of control of emotions have contributed towards the development of her panic attacks? Click here for a video on understanding panic attack.
Click below to link to:
An experimental study of emotional processing in panic
Data related to emotional control and the occurrence of panic attacks
A vulnerability model to explain the occurrence of the first panic attack
Reference:
Baker. R, Holloway. J, Thomas P. W., Thomas S., Owens., M. Emotional Processing and Panic. (2004) Behaviour Research & Therapy, Vol 42, 11, 1271-1287
“She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B”
Dorothy Parker on Katherine Hepburn at a Broadway first night