“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
Confronting the final challenges. The process of recovering from a panic disorder and agoraphobia is straightforward, but difficult. The affected individual has to experience panic attacks over and over again, purposely, and then remain in the threatening situation...
Does that make me credulous or cynical? A formative experience. At the age of fifteen, I had a seemingly inconsequential experience which I have thought about ever since. I was walking with my older brother up Broadway. It was in the days of the Cadillac tailfins....
Mitral Valve Prolapse Mitral valve prolapse is a condition which is supposed to occur frequently in the presence of panic disorder. Since it is a heart condition, patients told they have this condition have one more thing to worry about. Uncommonly, in the company of...
Feelings, even very unpleasant feelings such as fear, serve a purpose (See my blog post, “The Purpose of Feelings.”) They are a goad to action. For example, someone who is being treated rudely—or frustrated in any other way—is supposed to get angry. The...
Otherwise it won’t be good sex. When you stop to think about it—as I do from time to time—there are all kinds of unspoken rules that govern the way we conduct ourselves. I don’t mean just good manners—who opens the door or who holds the chair for someone else, or how...
I was first read an example of hate mail by a college professor of mine who had received such a letter earlier that day. We were eating dinner at the time along with a few other students. The professor was a good-natured gentleman of middle-age, dressed conservatively...
A problem for psychotherapy. It is well-documented that people’s memories are fallible; their perceptions are unreliable; and their view of the world—no matter how strongly believed—may well be contrary to the facts, even contrary to physical law. All of these aspects...
Fear People enter psychotherapy with a desire to feel better. Usually they have symptoms they wish to overcome. They want to be free of anxiety and depression and, perhaps, certain specific fears, such as phobias, and certain habits, such as those that trouble the...
A matter of not knowing enough, rather than too much Health worriers (sufferers from Health Anxiety) tend to imagine the worst possible illness that would explain the physical symptoms they have. These are often the symptoms of anxiety: headache, stomachache,...
The stubborn nature of belief In the early 1960s, when I was trained, psychoanalysis had a death’s grip on the practice of psychiatry. All of the psychiatric disorders were explained as disturbances of childhood experience. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example,...
A car memoir I developed agoraphobia and panic disorder when I was in college. There was nothing unusual about my symptoms. I had panic attacks in classrooms and in the school library and worried initially as everyone does when they develop that condition about the...
Exposure and response prevention. There is an old joke about doctors: “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” “So, don’t do that.” A version I hear frequently: “Doc, I get upset when I read about all the side-effects of these drugs.” “So, don’t read about the side-effects.”...