Carolina Garcia Aguilar
Psychological Disorders
Panic disorder is a psychological disorder. The main features are recurrent events of panic abrupt, events of extreme fear, bordering on terror. The person not only experiences the recurrent events, but also a pounding heart, shortness of breath, faintness, and shaking. All these happen unexpectedly and are sometimes unexplainable. These recurrent events can play in the person’s head for up to 10-20 minutes. There is a relatively history of this psychological disorder, different causes and effects, those who are more likely to suffer from panic, and there are also treatments found for panic disorder.
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The person can also feel as if they are trapped. Once the panic is over, they feel exhausted. Because these panic attacks are most likely to reoccur, it is important for the person to avoid going to the same place where the incident happened, or for the person to be wherever they feel safe. “The first panic takes place in a public place (33%), while driving (25%), or at home (33%)”(Rachman 11).About one quarter of the people who suffer from this psychological disorder, experience nocturnal panics; occur early in their sleep and the person awakens in panic. Nocturnal panics are indistinguishable from other panics, and the person is able to remember the experience (Rachman 12).
Panic attacks can occur to many patients as early as childhood. The attacks happen to children who are stressed and are not relieved in some way, like speaking about it to someone, or as simple as doing things to distract themselves from all of the stress (Csoti 46). Stress is not the only cause of these panic attacks, fear is also another factor. If a child has a phobia, and the child begins to think of that phobia, it causes them to have these attacks. If the child is unable to avoid the fear, the negative thoughts then begin to escalate and more anxiety starts to build up, which then leads to having a panic attack. Stressful life events can make a child prone to panic disorders as well. Triggers can consist of serious illness, child abuse, witnessing a petrifying event or being part of one (Csoti 47).
“Panic disorder happens more frequently in women, with about 5 percent of women meeting criteria for panic disorder at some point in their lifetime (Kessler et al. 1994). That’s nearly 8 million women in the United States alone!”( Wiegartz 90). The greater tendency for women to emerge respiratory symptoms is interesting in light of results from provocation studies. Women with panic can have greater chances to panic-inducing respiratory challenge than their male counterparts (Papp & Gorman, 1988; Papp et al., 1997; Sheikh et al., 2002) (Castle 60). One reason why it is more likely for a woman to experience panic disorder at some point in their life it’s because pregnancy happens to impact panic. Although there are a few researchers who believe the calming effects of progesterone lessen panic attacks. But other researchers (Hertzberg and Wahlbeck 1999), believe these symptoms can worsen during pregnancy because of the many physical changes a woman is going through this time. When the uterus expands in a pregnant woman’s body, the diaphragm is being pushed and it does not allow much air in the lungs to go through and causes breathlessness. Although the body is adapting to this and it is not dangerous, it can be scary for some women which leads them to having panic attacks. During the postpartum period anxiety is most likely to happen for the first time or worsen. “In fact, many women have reported that their panic emerged during the first twelve weeks after birth...
