Types of Therapeutic Panic Attack Treatment

When people think of a panic attack treatment, they immediately think of popping a pill. As a panic attack treatment, medicine can only go so far, controlling the symptoms while the individual must deal with the underlying disorder. Most often, when a person addresses the disorder causing the panic attacks, he or she will do so under the guidance of mental health professional during the course of therapy. There are many types of therapy, though, that can be used to treat panic attacks. Here’s a little summary of the most common types of therapeutic panic attack treatment.

Behavior Therapy

Behavior therapy believes that you can change the mind by changing behavior. So, as a panic attack treatment, it tries to change the behavior that causes the panic attacks. For example, if you have a panic attack every time you get in a car, in behavior therapy, you might be slowly exposed to a car in safe, controlled circumstances. The theory is that the more you interact with a car in a non-threatening matter, the less likely it is to induce anxiety. Eventually, you should be able to get in the car without experiencing panic or panic attacks. Because behavior therapy requires that you interact with something concrete, it works best as a panic attack treatment when the panic attacks are symptoms of an underlying phobia.

Cognitive Therapy

Just the opposite of behavior therapy, cognitive therapy believes that you can change behavior by changing the mind. As a panic attack treatment, it works by discussing and examining the anxiety that causes the panic attacks and teaches patients how to distinguish between rational and irrational threats. Cognitive therapy is an effective treatment for people who have panic attacks in conjunction with generalized anxiety disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Cognitive behavior therapy, as it sounds, is the middle ground between the other two types of panic attack treatment. Cognitive behavior therapy holds that the way we think, act, and feel all contribute to our mental health, and to address any mental health problem we must address all three of these facets of mental health. Cognitive behavior therapy is used to treat all manner of panic and anxiety disorder as well as depression, which often seems to coexist with anxiety and panic.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is probably the least conventional of panic attack treatments, but it’s not total nonsense. Hypnosis has been used in a therapeutic context at least as far back as Sigmund Freud and still has subtle traces in more traditional psychotherapy in the form of psychoanalysis, age regression, and vivification. Practitioners of hypnotherapy do not necessarily believe that hypnosis itself is an effective panic attack treatment, rather that patients are more receptive to other forms of therapy when in a hypnotic trance. Hypnotherapy seems to work well with phobias and general anxiety.