Coaching for Panic Disorders
international trauma therapist and coach
Because life happens
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Panic disorder coaching explained
Panic disorder is an extremely debilitating condition. Many sufferers report symptoms of heart palpitations and hyperventilation, the fear of being out of control and an impending sense of doom.
For many sufferers, panic attacks may be triggered by elevators or airplanes, traffic jams or movie theaters. Others are triggered by shortness of breath – whether through exercise, humidity or being in a stuffy, confined space with lots of other people.
Most sufferers are extremely embarrassed about their panic attacks and wish they could “just get control of themselves”. Many have undergone excruciating treatment using a systematic desensitization approach which involves gradually exposing the sufferer to what they most fear – with limited results.
“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time”.
~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Understanding panic disorder
Rather than a set of random, unexplained symptoms, Jane believes that panic attacks are triggered by subtle cues that look like, smell like, sound like or feel like a life-threatening situation to which the sufferer has been exposed before – not once, but twice.
The brain is usually very good at dealing with a one-time traumatic event – particularly if it occurs when we are young – and is usually able to tuck it away as an isolated experience that is unlikely to happen again.
Should a similar experience occur later in life, however, the brain suddenly kicks into overdrive, recognizing that the same experience could occur again and again and being ultra-sensitive to any cues that may resemble either of the previous events.
Treating panic disorder
Jane uses a combination of Thought Field Therapy and EMDR Therapy to treat panic disorder. The beauty of EMDR is that the sufferer doesn’t have to know which events might be triggering the panic attack – rather, EMDR will find them.
She starts by taking a thorough developmental history, paying careful attention to issues of prenatal, birth or preverbal trauma, which sometimes highlights possible areas where the original trauma may have occurred. She will also ask the sufferer about the most recent panic attack, and using that as an entry point, will ask the client to float back to any times when the body may have felt the same way before.
By building a chronological list of contributing events, Jane will use EMDR to target the first, worst and most recent events of panic, before using a Future Template technique to target future events where panic could potentially occur.
The crucial ingredient, however, is teaching clients to have compassion for themselves, and engendering a sense of wonder at the body’s amazing ability to keep us safe.