Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) has been in use to deal with Panic and Anxiety Disorder for a fairly long time. However, before getting into the discussion any further, it needs to be understood as to what this disorder entails. In fact, Panic and Anxiety Disorder is nothing but a heightened sensation of acute bodily anxiety and the interpretation of such sensation as potentially dangerous. This leads to very severe conditions including psychological imbalance. However, CBT has been found to be an effective mechanism to deal with this problem. Here is a small explanation as to how that is done:
- Understanding the sensation of anxiety and the related thought-process: The first logical process in the CBT process is to make a quick analysis of the bodily sensations that a patient is experiencing and the consequent thoughts of imminent danger. In doing so, it is very important to make a distinction between the sensation and the related thought-process. Thereafter, a two-column list needs to be prepared, one column detailing the sensations and the other containing the thoughts. CBT tries to convince the patient that the sensations don’t cause the thoughts but beliefs do.
- Examining evidences: Thereafter, CBT tries to counsel the patient to find out which explanation better justifies the sensations – the potentially dangerous thought-process or the alternative explanation to the same. In doing so, the patient becomes more reasonable in finding out what caused the sensation and how the same could be explained.
- Being objective during times of anxiety: During times of anxiety, the patient would be normally inclined to believe the dangerous thought that comes to his/her mind than a more reasonable explanation of the same. However, CBT counsels patients to be more calm and patient during acute moments of physical anxiety, jot down the experiences and look at those from a neutral perspective. The act of writing the experiences during a panic attack would make the patient more objective. Initially though, the act will not be very easy. As a patient moves ahead in his therapy, he would become more objective and slowly but gradually the panic attacks would subside. In fact, CBT is all about the cognition of the patients and his subsequent interpretations of the same. While panic attacks could indeed be very dangerous at times, the good news is that it can be treated using the services of a cognitive behavioral therapists in centers like the Centre for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in Ontario, Canada.