Panophobia: causes, symptoms and treatment

Suffer panophobia - it is to live, thinking only about the past, tensely, constantly and fearfully awaiting the sudden resurrection of episodes of fear... When a rich imagination involuntarily and persistently seeks out in memory the most diverse pictures, in an unthinkable way, painting them with unreal, improbable, and often simply fantastically inexplicable frightening details.

It is painful to look for signs that justify the spontaneous manifestations of anxiety and fear, forgetting about the realities of life. How to get rid of this obsessive and uncontrollable form of anxiety will be discussed in this article.

Panophobia is an incredible fear of everything in the world, a multitude of dissimilar objects, events or actions, any changes in the internal state or in the external environment. Fear, accompanied by a painful, absolutely unjustified expectation of an impending disaster. Panophobia is a condition, a form of constant anxiety, which is a difficult and intractable disease. The name of the disease goes back to the word "panic" and the ancient Greek, mythological image of the god of the wild, Pan. Panophobia is synonymously referred to as panalepsy, pantophobia and omniphobia.

The famous actor and film director Woody Allen experienced this disease in full and for a long time. Among his usual fears were fear of heights, insects, confined spaces, and others. Allen was afraid of bright colors, elevators, peanut butter. The actor was afraid when bathing in the shower, and a banana for breakfast always had to be cut into exactly seven pieces.

Obsessive forms of fear were described in ancient Greece, but panophobia, as a separate disease, was not classified for a long time. The symptoms of this mental state have been attributed to melancholy. Hippocrates ranked it among fears and despondency.

During the Middle Ages, people suffering from this disease were considered possessed by the devil, who was subject to exorcism through the sophisticated religious manipulations of that time. This state of affairs persisted until the 17th century.

In the 19th century, the disease was considered as a neurosis caused by disorders of the emotional, volitional and intellectual spheres.... Around this time, neurotic disorders began to be distinguished from delusional, obsessive hallucinations, called the "disease of doubt." The disorder was thought to be due to dysfunctional paranoid thinking. An independent disease attributed to neuroses, panophobia became in the XX century.

In 1911, Theodule Ribot, who studied mental deviations of people, found that a person who fell ill with panaphobia was not able to unequivocally determine the cause of fear. Objects and events frightening the patient did not have clear outlines and clearly expressed external signs, they were blurred and constantly changing. At the same time, changes in the situation aggravated the course of the disease, since the alternation of sources of fear accelerated.

Moreover, the implicitness and absence of external objects did not relieve the patient of horror, since he was disturbed by anticipations - the fear of an imaginary object turned into an obsessive expectation of an uncertain event (fear of waiting). In the ICD-10 classifications, panophobia belongs to phobic diseases and is considered as a generalized anxiety disorder with the main system-forming feature - "unfixed anxiety".

It was not possible to establish the exact reasons for the occurrence of panophobia. Patients are not able to record even the approximate dates of the onset of the disease. The disease has no hereditary, at the genetic level, predispositions. Starting unexpectedly, it progresses slowly, starting with one specific phobia. Further, the number of objects of fear multiplies, and new forms are added to the initial disease. The main causes of the disease include:

• constancy of the stress state;
• regular change of environment, impact of external factors, stresses of a long-term nature;
• loneliness;
• serious physical injury and illness;
• family crises, loss or serious illness of a loved one;
• feeling of hopelessness.

The starting sign of the onset of the disease is the transition to a negative way of thinking. The patient is seized by a total state of sadness, sadness and longing. If it lasts a long time, you should consult a doctor.

If medical care is ignored, then the symptoms of the disorder are aggravated.... The productivity of a panophobe's professional activity falls noticeably. Along with this, the level of self-esteem is significantly reduced. Personality devalues ​​itself.

Personal positive experience is not taken into account, the patient concentrates on the negative of the past, begins to see threats from the environment, revealing in people unnatural hostility. Ultimately, social self-isolation sets in. Sometimes it comes to the fact that some patients may refuse even contact with their parents.

The stage of exacerbation of the disease is characterized by:

• manifestations of tearfulness, loudness and hysteria;
• increased sweating, not caused by objective weather conditions or increased physical exertion;
• exacerbated reactions to loud sound levels (fainting, dizziness, increased pulse rate);
• panic attacks.

Disorders are characterized by two main features: depersonalization and the emergence of a non-localized source of fear. There are no special diagnostic methods for these signs of a phobia. To identify them, it is just a few conversations with a qualified specialist... According to the descriptions of patients, the picture of the disorder is characterized by the expectation of horror in the future and the manifestation of paralyzing fear.

The disorder is not a medical condition that can be treated with medication. Usually, in order to alleviate the painful condition and relieve certain acute manifestations, neuroleptic and sedative medications are prescribed by a psychiatrist. Getting rid of panophobia is a long journey that requires deep work of both the patient and the professional doctor.

The most effective in this case are:

• methods of exposure therapy, including methods of latent sensitization and techniques of "flooding";
• methods of cognitive-behavioral therapy;
• desensitization techniques;
• stimulation of the synthesis of adrenaline;
• "Energy" methods.

Exposure therapy techniques are productive, but require special training. It is extremely relevant here patient preparation, consisting in teaching him steadfastly endure their painful conditions, without shamefully hiding their illness in front of their close circle.

Latent sensitization consists of several sessions, each of which includes at least three treatment cycles. The essence of such a cycle: the attending physician introduces the patient into a state of complete relaxation, relaxation, and then simulates the occurrence of a stressful situation. Upon reaching the peak of anxiety in the model suggested by the doctor, the patient is again put into a state of relaxation. In the process of alternating states, the patient develops a tendency to forget fears.

"Flooding" refers to the technique of completely immersing the patient in a state of fear, controlled by the attending physician. Purpose: to lead the patient to the experience of stress and to check if this has any negative consequences for him. The technique allows you to eliminate the fear of death in heart attacks and the fear of fainting. The "flood" lasts about 45 minutes, and the sessions are repeated every day until the patient is cured within the framework of the program developed by the doctor.

"Flood in the imagination" (implosion) is carried out similarly to the "flood" method, but has some differences:

• goal: evoking vivid emotions of fear through the imagination to reduce the degree of anxiety in real life, since long-term interaction with sources of fear reduces the level of emotional perception of the patient;
• objects of fear are worked out in turn;
• having recorded a tendency towards a decrease in the level of fear in the patient, the psychotherapist gives him homework;
• to work out the situations, various options are offered.

Within the framework of cognitive behavioral therapy situations are worked out in milder forms. Patients, asking questions, are asked to analyze their style of thinking, to make positive adjustments in their attitude to life. The list of questions is worked out by the psychotherapist, taking into account the individual characteristics of the patient and the characteristics of his disease.

The therapy includes 3 stages:

• working with questions and recording the patient's answers;
• the patient composes answers at home to additional questions regarding other sources of fear;
• at the next session, the results of homework are studied, the doctor gives answers to the questions that the patient has.

Desensitization with the help of hypnosis is the correction of the feeling of fear in aspects of its physical localization. The fact is that during panic attacks, a person's muscle tension is localized in certain parts of the body:

• tremor of the hands;
• diaphragm - suspension of breathing, apparent difficulty in the respiratory process;
• muscles of the "collar zone" - in stressful situations they begin to contract involuntarily, a person tries to hide his head and face;
• the muscular system of the organs of vision - the gaze stops.

The patient hypnotized and then fully conscious, stimulate frightening situations. Then, at the maximum levels of fear, they recommend that he perform special exercises to relax the corresponding muscle group, in which the clamps are formed.

When stimulating the formation of adrenaline the patient learns to overcome painful conditions, acting in defiance of fears. In some cases, when the patient's own adrenaline is not enough, the doctor resorts to hormonal injections at the time of the appearance of stress peaks.

Energetic techniques are varieties of oriental healing options. This includes yoga, acupuncture, meditation, and various breathing and relaxation options. Such methods are mainly used as additional tools, since they are unable to completely replace professional treatment.