Does counselling help ?

[Sanjay]

I was advised after my tests at the hospital to go in for counselling for panic attacks .

I am really tired of this whole stuff , feel like crying .


This started after I saw my brother in law pass away last year at the age of 39 due to a sudden cardiac death .

I am now 40 ... I feel at times I have chest pain ... and I panic ... something in the left hand ...and I panic ....

The only things my reports show up is Sinus Tachy at 112-115BPM whenever I do a ECG .... but otherwise it may be 95bpm ...

Will counselling help me ? can I get out of this state with a good counsellor just by counselling ?

[Daniel]

Hi Sanjay

I find that counselling helps me (with my anxiety) in the short-term. But then I speak to other people who visit the same counsellor and they tell me it is the best thing that has happened to them, that it has changed their lives completely.

I guess it's a very personal thing and different help/treatmet effects people in different ways.

The way I see it is that any help that I'm offered I will grab it with both hands because anything is better than the way I have been feeling.

Hope this helps.

'After the rain comes the sun'

[SickofIt]

It helps me. Sometimes counseling is all that is needed, sometimes it is combined with meds for the best result. I have not used meds at all because I realize that my problems stem from things I can control. That's not to say that it is easy, but this anxiety and panic (for me) is a symptom of unresolved emotional issues. It's not a big, bad mystery. I know my brain is wired to react this way and my counselor has helped me see how to deal with it.

[trevor]

hi sanjay,

councelling HELPED me so so much,

you can tell them anything and they will sit and listen to you ,,

i had 7 sessions over 3 months and what a difference

GO FOR IT MATE:D:D:D

[SickofIt]

Here you go: Found this on WebMD's website today:
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Fewer Panic Attacks With Talk Therapy

Combining Talk Therapy and Drug Treatment Is an Effective Combination, Researchers Say

By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
on Monday, March 07, 2005


March 7, 2005 -- People get fewer panic attackspanic attacks when they get talk therapy as well as drug treatment.

The therapy -- a simplified version of a psychotherapy known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT -- took only six, hour-long sessions over 12 weeks. Since many panic-attack patients do not ever see a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, the treatment was designed to be given in doctors' offices by nurses trained in the technique.

University of Washington researcher Peter P. Roy-Byrne, MD, and colleagues report the findings in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

"In a real-world setting … cognitive-behavioral therapy is still capable of exerting a significant beneficial effect," they conclude. "The outcomes achieved in this study cannot definitively be attributed to cognitive-behavioral therapy alone. Nonetheless, the possibility that … cognitive-behavioral therapy alone tailored for the primary care setting might be an efficacious treatment for panic disorder should be systematically tested."

Fewer Panic Attacks With Therapy

Roy-Byrne's team enrolled 232 people who had frequent panic attacks. Most of them also suffered from other psychiatric problems. More than half had chronic depression -- which makes panic attacks much harder to treat.

Half the patients got standard therapy. That is, their primary care doctors gave them antipanic drugs according to a drug therapy "roadmap" designed by psychiatrists. Their doctors were also free to refer these patients to mental health specialists.

The other half of the patients got the same drug therapy. They also got free sessions with a psychologist-in-training with little or no experience in cognitive behavioral therapy. The idea was to imitate the kind of nonspecialist who might be trained to treat patients in primary care doctors' offices.

Therapy sessions taught patients how to respond to symptoms of panic attacks, depression, and social anxiety. They received a video and a workbook, and were asked to attend at least three therapy sessions in person, for a total of six in-person or telephone sessions over 12 weeks. Six follow-up "booster" telephone sessions also were scheduled over rest of the year.

The bottom line: Patients getting talk therapy plus antipanic drugs did better than those on standard treatment. After a year, 29% of these patients -- but only 16% of standard-treatment patients -- had zero panic attacks and minimal anxiety or fearful avoidance behavior. Nearly two-thirds of patients treated with the therapy/drug combination responded to treatment, while only 38% of patients responded to drugs alone.

Roy-Byrne and colleagues note that many patients did not complete the cognitive behavioral therapy program -- even though it was free and scheduling was highly flexible.

"A major goal of future work in this area should be to develop, implement, and disseminate approaches to treatment of anxiety disorders that are maximally acceptable to patients, physicians, and payers," they write.