How to put the brake on in trauma
In order to help with the symptoms of trauma we need to think of the trauma response as being an accelerator. I often remind my clients that trauma is something our body does. Our body has floored the accelerator pedal (so to speak) and we have forgotten that we even have a brake. Trauma as [...]
Panic Attacks are Not What you Think
I estimate that one in every 10 people who come to me are suffering from panic attacks. They think they are going mad and berate themselves for feeling out of control. Yet panic attacks are not what you think. They are a stimulus-response circuit that your body has learnt. I have suffered from them myself. […]
Panic Attacks: A Matter of Conditioning
Panic attacks are disabling and can have a significant effect on limiting people’s lives. In a recent post on panic disorder, I looked at the underlying sympathetic nervous system response and how yoga and mindfulness practices can help. From a psychotherapeutic perspective, I find that when people have some education about the process of panic attacking […]
What lies beneath panic attacks?
So What Lies Beneath Panic Disorder/Attacks? Rather than a ‘mental disorder’ this is a disorder of our system. A fault in the operating system, like a virus on the hard drive. It is a product of living in a chronic emergency mode of attention: the sympathetic nervous system is in permanent overdrive. Like a car [...]