Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

With panic attacks, seeking professional help is a must. Your doctor will work with you and determine the appropriate treatment for you, and he/she might recommend that you go and see a psychologist, counselor, or another type of therapist.

For myself, cognitive behavioral therapy was the best thing that ever happened to me in regards to panic attacks and anxiety.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of psychotherapy that is based on taking a look at what you are thinking, what your beliefs are, and what your behaviors are. It takes a look at how beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors, can influence your appraisal of events. The therapist aims to have a positive influence on negative emotions, and aims to produce positive changes in behavior.

For myself, it was an incredibly revealing process. I was able to make some very positive changes. This led me to develop a very rational way of thinking, helped me examine how I was handling stress, and helped me to assess how my behaviors were causing me stress.

Over time I had realized the panic attacks that were occurring were likely rooted in the fact that I was not managing stress appropriately. I had pushed myself too hard to succeed without taking the time to do some of the other important things in life. While working so hard to succeed I had filled my calendar with work appointments, business meetings, and was working around the clock, taking courses in my spare time, and volunteering as well.

By working with a counselor, I was not only able to overcome my panic attacks, but I was actually able to accomplish far more in my personal and professional life. One of the first things that my counselor and I took a look at was my thinking, and how what I was thinking could be influencing my perspective on events in my life. By thinking more positively and keeping things in perspective, I was able to really learn how to be stress free and highly effective at the same time. In addition, we looked at the way that I was thinking specifically in regards to panic attacks.

Early on in the counseling sessions we had determined that I was actually afraid of panic attacks. Part of the breakthrough was to realize that I could have a panic attack and know that everything was going to be alright. My counselor helped me to see that fear of the panic attacks themselves was part of the triggering process, as well as resisting a panic attack as it happens. She taught me to be proactive in regards to panic attacks.

Some of the things I learned in counseling were as follows:

To observe my thinking, keep things in perspective, and develop a scientific or more rational way of thinking.

To better manage stress in my life and to create a set of daily habits that would help accomplish this task.

To discover things I really enjoyed doing, and do more of them.

To regularly schedule time to "do nothing". In other words, to relax and have time where there was nothing to do. It would be the sort of time to simply putter about, flip through a magazine without really reading it, or anything else that was a form of relaxation in and of itself. In essence, it was a time that I would just simply relax and do nothing, even if for only 15 minutes.

To think of three things that I am thankful for each day in the morning when I wake up.

To better handle a panic attack through relaxing through the experience of it.

To relax instead of trying to avoid future panic attacks

To realize that avoiding panic attacks or places where I had them would only make them worse. Learning to deal with the fear and ultimately becoming fear-free when it came to future panic attacks was probably one of the biggest steps for me in overcoming panic attacks.

There was also a lot more that I learned through counseling, and there were a lot of really positive changes in my life (explaining this in detail literally takes up an entire chapter of my book). The positive changes in my life certainly did not occur overnight, but were part of a more gradual process, where my whole life started to improve.

After approximately three months of regular counseling I was miles ahead of where I was before. I had been panic attack-free for a month or two during the counseling, and was able to discuss some of the panic attacks and how I was able to cope with them. After another month or so of sessions I had completed my counseling. Over the next year I continued to work on and master some of the things I learned in counseling. These included relaxation, rational and positive thinking, improving time management skills, taking time for recreation and fun activities, and also in just taking some time to know myself better and enjoy life. It has since been a few more years and I have not had a panic attack since. I now have more responsibilities, earn more money, have more family responsibilities, and have a very rewarding and fulfilling life overall. I am very grateful and thankful.

I truly hope that everyone has as good and positive an experience that I did when it comes to counseling or therapy. While every person's results will be unique, I am a firm believer that cognitive behavioral therapy should be able to help everyone in some way. I would also imagine that every therapist will have their own unique approach, yet have many things in common. The results you achieve might be faster, or may take more time than the results I achieved. No one can guarantee that you'll be panic-attack free, or tell you when that will happen. However, by working with your doctor and therapist and following their advice, you should be able to greatly improve your circumstances and improve how you deal with panic attacks immensely. As you master what you learn from them, you will be one step further on the road to being panic-free.

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