INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / MARCH 14, 1989

 

 

PANIC ATTACK!

One evening three years ago,
family therapist Larry Green
was lecturing at Douglas Col-
lege when he happened to touch
upon the subject of panic at-
tacks. A funny thing happened:
his audience, who usually main-
tained a certain undercurrent of
conversation during class, be-
came riveted to Green’s words.

"It was quite remarkable,"
recalls Green. "Not a single
noise could be heard. I’d been
relating to them a simple panic
attack scenario and it was like
they knew exactly what I was
talking about.”

Later, Green did some unoffi-
cial research and discovered
himself in the midst of an entire
populace of "closet" panic at-
tack victims. The more extreme
victims were unable to function
at work properly, unable to so-
cialize, even unable to leave
their home.

On March 21, Green will hold
a special session entitled

 

Panic attacks can be
disguised and ignored
- but the consequence
seems to be health
deterioration.

 

"Coping With Panic Attacks" at
Douglas College. He will look
at the different causes of panic
attacks and identify and describe
both short and long term healing
strategies for the malady.

 

What exactly is a panic at-
tack? Symptoms include heart
palpitation or pain, shortness of
breath, and the preeminent emo-
tion of fear. It used to be
referred to as a "nerve attack"
and could strike anyone, seem-
ingly for no reason.

Psychiatrists today believe
that if a person suffers from
more than three panic attacks
per month, they are undergoing
"panic disorder" - a malady
which, if left untreated, leads
directly to depression and
agoraphobia (the morbid dread
of public spaces).

Panic attacks can be disguised
and ignored - but the conse-
quence seems to be health
deterioration. Because of
people like Green, who discus-
ses the malady in depth, more
and more people are realizing
they are experiencing the
symptoms - and being cured by
professionals.

"I suffered terribly from panic
attacks ten years ago," says
Green. "There was so much I
had gone through as a youth that
I'd been denying, burying in the
back of my mind, and sure
enough that manifested itself in
panic attack symptoms. My
cure came in the form of
psychiatric treatment."

Although the medical and
psychiatric community recog-
nize the wide-spread
proliferation of panic attacks,
the mystery lies in discovering
their cause. Green’s session

 

will treat it as a psychological,
spiritual and physiological prob-
lem.

 

Green has seen many
panic attack victims
completely cured.

 

"There is no one cause or cure
for this kind of problem. By
taking three different ap-
proaches to the same
phenomena, I’m trying to em-
power the people to think about
their own specific symptoms
and decide which category they
best fall into," says Green. "If
they decide they have a
physiological problem, for ex-
ample, they will seek medical
treatment. If it’s psychological
they might want to consult a
psychiatrist. If it’s spiritual,
then maybe it’s time to assess
one’s own life; start asking the
big questions such as "Why as |
here?’ or ’What do I want out of
life?”"

Although panic attacks and
disorders can be serious
problems, it is not a gloom and
doom scenario. Green who has
been a family therapist for 18
years, has seen many panic at-
tack victims completely cured.

"It’s something that can be
cured completely, permanently,”
he says. "The trick is to identify
the problem and what has hap-
pened or is happening in one’s
life to cause it."