Honest feedback about the CBT4PANIC programme

[robinhall]

Hi

I have sent you a pm

Please keep in mind that anxiety and depression are extremely common

1 in 4 British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year, and 1 in 6 experiences this at any given time. 


Although mental disorders are widespread, serious cases are concentrated among a relatively small proportion of people who experience more than one mental health problem.

It is estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem.

Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain

So please remember that 1 in 4 of the people you are not wanting to know about your problem are also facing difficulties of their own.

You are not alone and will get great support on this site.

Robin

[Mindful]

I wanted to try it, but the site wont accept my paypal or i am doing something wrong. Very frustrating for me.

[nomorepanic]

Mindful - I am sure Robin will be along to help out very soon

[Mindful]

Yes, he has been in touch, very helpful thankyou

[eshm25]

Hi Robin

I hope you can give me an overall honest answer weather your program can help me or if any other readers can indeed give me advice or help.

Ive always suffered with anxiety attacks and intrusive thoughts but recently it has interrupted with my work life. My problem is that I am constantly having thoughts that i am going to get an anxiety attack and my mind is bombarded with these thoughts that it eventually brings the anxiety symtoms of heart palpitations and sweat etc.

The main problems is that both the obsessive thoughts and anxiety symptoms means I lose my focus and concentration and therefore work becomes harder. I then worry that If it disrupts my work I may lose my job and the worries associated with that, so it becomes a full on cycle as this also brings on anxiety.

To give you a scenario, lets just say that I am in the middle of writing an important report, I cannot just think like a normal person and all my thoughts are going to that report. My mind will try and test me and will say if you get anxiety you wont be able to finish this report, so it will constantly give me thoughts of failing the report which in turn leads the anxiety symptoms. The problem is that these constant thoughts and my mind always wanting to think these thoughts leads me to losing concentration and the anxiety also contributes to this as well.

I have seen therapists and the common agreement is that I should accept the thoughts and anxiety as It will go away. I can accept the anxiety symtoms and live with it but the fact that the anxiety leads to a loss of focus on my work is the difficult part. Also when i accept the thoughts, because thats all that goes through my mind, again that disrupts my patterns of thought.

Please let me know if your program can help and breifly how it can help.

Many Thanks for your time

ESH

[robinhall]

Hi ESH

What you are describing is called 'Anticipatory Anxiety' which is a very common problem with Panic Attacks

It actually makes a lot of sense from your point of view - I take it you have had one or several panic attacks - which are incredibly frightening. It is very understandable and actually quite logical that you will be quite worried that you will have this experience again. This worry creates a continuous low level of anxiety which will become exaggerated if you are confronted with any situation which you feel will be affected BY the anxiety. So the anxiety increases. If this happens many times you get caught in a cycle of fear.

The therapists advice is true but you can only do this if you have a thorough understanding of why you panic, what maintains it and a set of skills to HELP you 'accept' the feelings. Just blindly accepting them is useless because in the back of our mind we still fear them. Understanding is required.

I assure you that CBT4PANIC will give you the understanding, the skills AND more essentially how to implement the understanding and skills so that you can be free of the cycles of fear for good. The programme is free for 30 days - you don't have much to lose - it's very easy to follow - it won't trigger any anxiety - it's a fun read using cartoons to illustrate the concepts and if you look at what people are saying on nomorepanic - it WORKS :-)

If you give it a try please let everyone know how you get on
Robin

[lizzie29]

Hi Robin

I recently bought the CBT4PANIC programme. I haven't had chance to have an in-depth go at it, but what I've seen is really good, and the little booklet is brilliant! Very handy to have it all to hand like that, easy to read, makes a lot of sense and serious but light-hearted at the same time.

Would definitely recommend it. I've just started a new job so am mega busy but am hoping to get a good start on the programme asap.

Thanks, and good luck to anyone else who buys it.

[robinhall]

Hi Lizzie
Glad you like the look of the programme so far - always a good sign

I know it's going to help you a lot once you start working on it.

best of luck with it and remember I'm here to help every step of the way.

Robin

[robinhall]

Hi Lizzie
Just wondered if you had been able to get started yet. Often the biggest obstacle people with panic have to face is 'getting started' - sometimes people feel that if they aren't 'too bad' at the moment they don't want to 'rock the boat' by reading anything about recovery.

I would like to assure everyone that CBT4PANIC is designed to be as least anxiety provoking as possible - in fact it's a fun read.

Panic disorder is VERY treatable - even if you just read the books for a few weeks you will feel more confident that you can start the journey of recovery.

Best of luck
Robin

[Mindful]

Half the battle with anxiety-panic is understanding what is happening and why. The CBT4PANIC programme explains this very well. Its an easy read, which makes it relatively easy to remember what you've read which is a must when you have an anxious mind! It also provides some surprising laughs along the way, i found myself giggling as i read the comic strips, one of those '' Its funny cos its true'' scenario's. The whole programme is very informative without being too overbearing. I was actually sad to finish reading the books

The other half of the battle is taking what you've learnt and putting it to practice, now this is where we have to be brave, ( aren't we all already? I think so! ) but we have to dig a little further, remember what we learnt, remember the cartoon strips we saw, challenge our own personal anxiety-panic. This does take practice and patience, its also incredibly hard to let go and change your whole thinking pattern. Its early days for me with the CBT4PANIC programme but i would recommend this to anyone out there who is stuck in that awful ''fear of the fear'' situation.