Understanding Panic Disorders

Part I of Essay
Fear, heart palpitations, terror, a sense of impending doom, dizziness, fear of fear. These are the words used to describe a panic disorder. But there is great hope: treatment can benefit virtually everyone who has this condition. It is extremely important for the pers ....

Part II of Essay
.... is to educate the public and health care professionals about the disorder and encourage people with it to obtain effective treatments. To continue , in a panic disorder, brief episodes of intense fear are accompanied by multiple physical symptoms (such as heart palpitations and dizziness) that occur repeatedly and unexpectedly in the absence of any external threat. These “panic attacks,” which are the hallmark of panic disorder, are believed to occur when the brain's normal mechanism for reacting to a threat—the so-called “fight or fligh ....