susan is experiencing anxiety attacks she does not know what triggers her anxiety attcks and she has come to y

Answer 1

Many things can lead up to anxiety attacks. Stress with work, family or friends. I couldn't explain it either, I actually felt like I was going crazy or dying at one point. Good news is, with counseling and medication, it can be suppressed. Best thing to do is make an appt. with a psychologist to see how bad her attacks are. Psychotherapy is great, it is like tricking the mind. I was only in therapy for a short time before I was able to overcome. Check out the book called "The Feel Good Handbook" by David D Burns. It explains what and why it happens and how to prevent the next attack. My money was well spent on this book (ebay $10). It was a recommendation from my therapist. It truly is a God send. Good Luck.

Answer 2

Does Susan experience random anxiety attacks? Does this happen in public, certain time of day, before performing a certain task (ie driving, taking a test, standing in front of a large group, paying bills, etc.) There are many things to consider. Try to pin point what happens before the anxiety attack or what you know you have to do (If you know you have a test in 5 minutes, but you get an anxiety attack, you probably have test anxiety. This may not be your case, but try to think along those lines logically.) I have almost earned my minor in psychology, so I am giving information I have learned in classes.

Answer 3

SEVERE ANXIETY/PANIC CAN BE A VERY SCARY THING YOUR FRIEND SHOULD SEE A DOCTOR..personally i suggest a psycologist not a gen doc...most family docs dont know what to do beyond prescribing meds-and not always prescribing the right ones...where a psycologist would know what she really needs

Answer 4

I'd have to know a whole lot more about Susan--but I did treat successfully, a bright young woman who asked to see me. I worked as a therapist for 21 yrs in a long-term Tx facility for adolescent young women, and her sister was one of the in-house school teachers there. Susan asked to see me. ( I did some private work, but with pvt supervision and was very selective.) She'd been D'x w/ agraphobia--couldn't leave her home at all for fear of passing out with the extreme anxiety that occurred each time. We worked together--she went for a very thorough physical exam; began, herself, working on developing a GOOD nutritional program for herself--with good protein snacks, etc. Eating was not a priority for her and she had really starved herself trying to deal with the anxiety! I began meeting her at her home 2X's wk; we worked on her childhood influences and experiences. She had been a champion swimmer as a child and had learned to push herself to extreme efforts to win! She also had an exceptional education background in bacterial science and taught "under-privileged" teen ager's with some extreme acting out bhv, in science. Working with experiments was tricky and caused her a lot of anxiety, but she was a good teacher and liked teaching. We began to focus in on her father's expectations of her winning at everything! And found that mentally, she was willing to push herself forever, with no reasonable acceptance of her accomplishments! I.e., she saw no human limits in herself. We found that the anxiety was serving survival function to keep herself from literally pushing herself beyond her physical limits! Once we got to the root of the anxiety which entailed more work on her Dad, then we started very gradually extending her area of safety with a very gradual desensitization program. She was first able only to open the front door and tolerate it so, for a good while. Then, gradually finding out what she could tolerate--out on the front porch; front walk; evetually, walk around the block, etc. Finally, we were able to go to the little neighborhood cafe and sit for coffee. She started to feel the anxiety building up, but was able to tolerate it because we knew she was safe. She finally zeroed into very subtle awareness of sound and vibrations. I had to quiet myself and study my own senses and FINALLY felt a very very slight tremor on the table as well as a very faint sound of a motor! Asking the waiter, we found out there was a compressor in the back of the cafe. We explored that and she was able to dissipate her anxiety. We realized that her system had become so attuned to the environment and that the cues were so subtle, that her mind couldn't ID the source of the sound, and resulted in fear/anxiety!!! We began branching out on our outings and went to the Crown Center in KCMO where she had used to swim on top of the building in an outside pool! Beautiful sourroundings! We walked down a new hallway to the pool, and she experienced anxiety. We stopped, but could not figure it out! Started walking slowly and FINALLY realized that the carpet had a zig-zag design that cossed over and back making an optical illusion that it was "snaking" its way down the hall!!! She was eventually about to return to good normal functioning, but realized that she didn't want to return to teaching--BUT wanted to join her husband's construction firm--which required a lot of math in calculating REBAR and other safety issues!! She THOROUGHLY enjoyed the work, and gained a lot of respect from her husband and construction people!! I think she even taught courses in rebar and construction!!! Sorry this is so long!! But it was a wonderful experience for both of us!! FEELINGS exist for our PROTECTION!! We just can't bully ourselves PAST our FEELINGS in order to do what we THINK we should!! Our survival instinct is much STRONGER than we are!!! THANK GOODNESS! I'm not saying this is the only way to work! It's one way and doesn't go quickly--but it is THOROUGH!