Has anyone had success with this method?

[ryangreen]

So I went to my first therapy session with my new therapist today and he suggested I try a new method as we were talking about my greatest fears which I narrowed down to sudden death mainly by cardiac arrest.

So we I said to him what of my heart suddenly stops or what if I die suddenly at the age of 30?

His response was change the what ifs to so what's well when he challenged me to say so what If I have a cardiac arrest or so what if I die right now I had a huge panic attack and was in tears in his office.

Does this sound like a good method if it pushes me into a panic attack?

[cattia]

I think this kind of therapy is meant to de-sensitise you to your anxious thoughts so that they no longer have such power over you and to help you face your fears about your worse case scenario. It's hard but I believe in the long run it will help. The more you can learn to expose yourself to these scary thoughts and challenge the the fewer the panic attacks will become.

[cpe1978]

I think this can be part of CBT.

[LunaLiuna]

It's called exposure therapy, I've done it for three years for my agoraphobia, cpe is right though, it's pretty much a part of CBT. It's just a little more intense I guess :)