Often doctors prescribe benzodiazephines or SSRI antidepressants for Panic disorder. A Significant number of people taking these medications find the side-effects unacceptable. And, over a 5 year longitudinal study, the medications brought full remission of Panic for just 45% of the patients.
CBT and exposure are shown to help during a short course of treatment, but patients will generally need another course of treatment in the future. Additionally, these treatments are not well-tolerated by a percentage of clients: 26% of CBT patients drop out of treatment, while 24% of exposure patients drop out. Unfortunately, those most severely affected by panic are the most likely to drop out of these challenging treatments.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy approach that views Panic as a traumatic experience, the memory of which is stored in the brain and the body. EMDR treatment desensitizes the memories, emotions, sensations and negative beliefs.
The first phase of Panic treatment with EMDR focuses on the Panic memories themselves. Once panic begin to happen less frequently and less intensely, the therapist and client may determine that the client is ready for the second phase: treating childhood memories of perceived or feared abandonment, humiliation, loneliness, and times the child felt they had to take care of the parent. Putting these memories to rest in the past (all people want to put bad experiences away in the past, but their emotional system knows if it is not truly resolved yet) is the goal of EMDR treatment.
To read more about panic attack symptoms on ComprehensiveTherapyApproach.com, please link to:
anxiety or panic attack symptoms
