Exam 6: Panic,anxiety,obsessions,and Their Disorders

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Panic disorder often persists despite infrequent panic attacks and no occurrence of dire consequences as a result of a panic attack.This may be explained by the use of "safety behaviors," behaviors that the individual engages in before or during an attack.When nothing catastrophic occurs,it is attributed to the use of the safety behaviors,as opposed to the lack of any real danger.

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The comprehensive learning theory suggests that initial panic attacks cause conditioning of anxiety to internal and external cues.Anxiety then is created in the presence of these cues,leading to more panic attacks.Because anxiety is conditioned to internal cues,panic attacks can seem to come out of nowhere.The internal cues that resemble panic attacks can cause an attack,regardless of how the person is actually feeling at the time.The cognitive theory suggests that people with panic disorder are highly sensitive to body sensations and tend to catastrophize in response to unusual sensations.This causes a vicious circle ending in a panic attack.The difference here is that it is the meaning people attribute to their symptoms that cause the panic.It is not necessary for people to make any attributions in the learning theory.So the learning theory is a better explanation for panic attacks that occur without any negative thoughts,such as during sleep.