Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Etc.

[Guest guest]

"There is a wonderful scene in the movie STARTING OVER, in whichBurt Reynolds is in the furniture section of a big department storewith a young woman (Jill Clayburgh) when she proceeds to have ananxiety attack right there in the store. As he struggles in abewildered fashion to help her pull herself together and get heremotions under control, he looks up to find that they are surroundedby a horde of gawking shoppers. He shouts out, "Quick, does anyonehave a Valium?" at which point one hundred hands fish franticallyinto their coat pockets and purses.This is certainly an age of anxiety. Many of the people in thestress clinic have problems related to anxiety, caused by the rampantstress in their lives and compounded by their medical problems.Anxiety is one of the most pervasive mind states we encounter in theclinic. This is hardly surprising, since most of our patients aresent

precisely because either they or their doctors think they needto learn how to relax and how to handle stress better.If we are honest with ourselves, most of us will have to admitthat we live out our lives on an ocean of fear. From time to time, ineven the hardiest of us, feelings of fear surface. They may be aboutdeath or being abandoned by someone. They maybe about being abused orviolated or tortured, or about feeling pain or being alone or beingsick or disabled, or about someone you love being hurt or killed. Wemay have fears of failure or fears of success, fears of letting otherpeople down or about the fate of the earth. Most of us carry suchfears within us. They are always present but they only surface undercertain circumstances.Some people handle feelings of fear much better than others do.Commonly, we cope with our fears by ignoring such feelings when theysurface or denying them altogether,

or concealing them from otherpeople. But to cope in this way increases the likelihood that damagewill be done in some other way, either by developing habitualmaladaptive behavior patterns such as passivity or aggressiveness tocompensate for our insecurities, by becoming overwhelmed andincapacitated by the very feelings themselves when they do surface,or by focusing on physical symptoms or other less threatening aspectsof our lives that we feel more able to control. And many people areunable to cope even in these questionable ways. They find itdifficult, if not impossible, to deny or ignore or conceal theiranxiety. Without effective means for dealing with it, their anxietycan have significant detrimental effects on their ability tofunction. And of course, it causes people to pursue many of themaladaptive coping avenues."This passage was taken from the excellent book called, "FullCatastrophe

Living (Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to FaceStress, Pain, and Illness) by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. published byDelta Trade Paperbacks.

My copy is 1991, and I finally found it at aused book store after searching many years for a copy. At that time,this book was out of print. I'm not sure if it is available again ornot. But, it is worth a look through the used bookstores. Dr. Kabat-Zinn runs a Stress Reduction Clinic at the University ofMassachusetts Medical Center. I highly recommend any book by thisauthor, but this book is particularly good as it deals withdepression, anxiety, stress, chronic pain and illness, etc.

We will discuss this subject more later, but I wanted to quotethis to you, as some of you weren't sure if your panic attacks oranxiety attacks are normal, or common. Yes, they are! You are notunique in having them, but they can be helped through many differentfacets of health care. We will discuss those techniques further soon.