Many professionals in the field describe the panic attacks and panic disorders as a (very effective) trap in two fundamental key areas. To overcome panic attacks demands effort, perseverance and dedication. The first trap considers a person who, struggling with a crisis, believes that whatever he is doing is unsafe (ie, he will get a heart attack, he will faint, he will lose the reason, he will lose the control) when, in real terms, a panic attack does not create any danger at all to him. Secondly, those affected by a panic attack will fall into the trap of carrying out anything that they consider will help them to avoid crisis when what they really do is to deteriorate their situation on how to overcome panic attacks. Such actions include behaviors of avoidance, as well as trying to control/overcome panic attacks, fight them, fall into superstitions and rituals to avoid panic attacks and reach self-protection. That is, what is done to deal with panic attacks ends up locking them in, in most cases (Carbonell, 2004).
According to Giorgio Nardone and Federica Cagnoni (Arezzo), an initial experience, either real or unreal, can bring into the person’s mind a new possibility of perceptual reaction: the fear. From that experience, everything that is carried out is done to protect himself from the real or imaginary danger. Nonetheless, this response does not work; quite the opposite, it just confirms the threat, which makes worse the effects and produces a classic situation of panic reaction, both in terms of fear generalization in the psyche as well as in the behavioral response, thus making it harder to overcome panic attacks.
Particularly, there have been recognized three typical solutions that make an effort to overcome panic attacks: 1) avoidance, 2) request for help and 3) attempt to control.
Avoidance. The consequence of avoiding, in fact, provides an evidence to the person of the threat of the prevented situation which, in turns, prepares subsequent evasive behaviors. In consequence, not only the fear increases but it also grows the person’s skepticism to overcome panic attacks with their own resources, thus boosting up the phobia and the reactions. Consequently, the disorder turns out to be more disabling and limiting.
Request for help. Once the vicious circle of avoidance is turned on, the person often uses a second “strategy” that turns out to be counterproductive: the request for assistance, that is, the need to always be dependant and comforted by someone who is willing to mediate in a crisis in order to help the affected person to overcome panic attacks. The provision of help assists the person to calm down, but steadily it leads to an increased fear situation. In fact, the possibility of having someone or something (a substance or drug) to quickly intervene in the provision of help, ends up reassuring the person that he/she is incapable of facing the feared situation all by him/herself.
Attempt to control. The control of physiological and behavioral reactions allows for a perceptual cycle that makes the person face his fear. Nonetheless, in an attempt to keep control at any costs on the body itself and on its psychiatric functions a paradoxical situation raises: when the person centers his attention on physiological responses (heart rate, breathing, balance, etc..), it inexarobly leads to an alteration of some of this same functions, causing a fear that generates more changes and puts the person further away from the position to overcome panic attacks.
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