Like a tsunami, fear and anxiety can turn into real panic, a wave that overwhelms and leaves the victim with the terror that it may return. At the time of Covid, starting from the first wave with all the unexpected deaths and then arriving at the subsequent waves and now to the doubts about vaccines, many are gripped by the pathological fear that seems to have become a modern epidemic.
What is panic
Fear and panic are two different but connected sensations: “The episode of the panic attack is in itself a circumscribed phenomenon. It lasts a few minutes and is comparable to a psychophysiological tsunami that makes us lose control of our most controlled emotion, fear “, explains Alessandro Bartoletti, psychologist and psychotherapist, PhD in Neurobiology at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and author of the book “Panic, anxiety & fear. Strategic guide for brave aspirants ”(Publisher Franco Angeli). “Panic – continues the expert – is nothing but the apotheosis of anxiety and fear and is accompanied by a psychophysiological storm of physical and mental symptoms that we could jokingly summarize as the ‘scary thirteen’. They are visceral symptoms such as tachycardia, choking, sweating and fear of dying. Neurological symptoms such as dizziness, feeling of fainting, shaking and tingling. And symptoms on the control of reality, such as the feeling of unreality and loss of individual identity, or the fear of losing control and going crazy, the most representative symptom of panic ”.
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So many different types of panic
But there are various types of panic: a phobic based one, an obsessive panic, a paranoid panic, a depressive panic, a traumatic panic, and even a panic of love. “There are really many perceptions that can lead to panic episodes: the terror of one’s heart sensations, obsessive brooding, fear of specific objects or situations, mental catastrophism, fright caused by media communication, manic perfectionism, memories traumatic, but also the intense pain for the end of a relationship ”, continues the psychologist. Even depression can be characterized by severe anxiety, fear and agitation.
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Panic and Covid-19
Has the fear of becoming infected with Covid-19 generated a new form of panic? “In reality – clarifies Bartoletti – the fear of contagion has first of all exacerbated the psychological distress in those who previously suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that leads to manic behaviors of cleaning and avoidance. These people have increasingly radicalized their compulsive behaviors of disinfecting objects and themselves. It’s as if their worst nightmare has turned into reality ”. Furthermore, the fear of contagion has increased anxiety for their health in some people, which in the long run can lead to severe forms of hypochondria characterized by manic control of one’s body and an obsessive search for medical information and reassurance.
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The warning signs
How to understand when we are experiencing some healthy fear or anxiety or when we are slipping into the pathological. What are the red flags? “Fear – Bartoletti replies – is one of the most useful emotions ever for the human being. It allows us to react to dangers so quickly and effectively that any rational reasoning could never match. Problems arise when we lose control of it and in trying to manage it we carry out dysfunctional attempts at a solution repeated over time “. In short, it is our own who manage fear that triggers the escalation towards panic, anxiety and anguish. For example? “Shunning unpleasant thoughts or images causes them to become intrusive obsessions. Or again, the avoidance of certain situations contributes to making them more and more threatening: this is how the phobia of traveling, moving, of closed places develops. Apparently the avoidance has the effect of an anxiolytic with immediate effect, in reality it makes us lose more and more control over our fear ”, explains Bartoletti.
Anti-panic tactics
What to do in the face of these sensations that sometimes paralyze the life of those who are victims of them? In addition to asking for help to undertake a path of psychotherapy when necessary, there are anti-panic tricks, i.e. tools to reacquire the management of one’s emotions through experiences and behaviors that develop new personal skills, or simply restore those we already have. One of the most well-known tricks of brief strategic psychotherapy is what takes the name of ‘worst fantasy’. “It consists of an exercise in voluntary exasperation of the feared anxious sensations”, explains the psychotherapist who is also a specialist in Brief Strategic Psychotherapy. “Forcing oneself to hold back the fear has paradoxical outcomes: the recalled demon dematerializes. However, this exercise should only be carried out under the guidance of a specialist because it requires pre-established times, methods and applications that cannot be improvised “.
Study your fear
A stratagem that is instead easily applicable in everyday life is to study one’s fears to overcome them. “When, for example, we are afraid of a specific situation, let’s say the fear of needles or blood sampling, we start with the physical study of the instrument, how a syringe is made. Those who are afraid often have a distorted representation of it ”, explains Bartoletti. “Then we move from theory to practice through small practical manipulation exercises, for example using it to water a seedling, and so on with greater and increasing approaches. By doing so, in a few months it is possible to overcome any long-standing phobia ”.
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