Thursday, March 3, 2016

Panic! At the Terror in the World

            RESPONSIBILITY! COMMITMENT! DEADLINES! GRAD SCHOOL! All of these words probably make you feel a certain emotion: panic. Panic is a debilitating sensation that people with Panic Disorder and Anxiety disorders feel constantly and a feeling that “normal” people experience from time to time during frightening experiences, like a Terrorist attack. Dr. Steward Shankman and Time magazine writer Maia Szalavitz both talk about how panic works in the brain and ultimately the body. Szalavitz describes how panic can take over the brain and how terrorists can use panic to their advantage and Shankman discusses how PD can affect a person’s startle reflex.
Shankman’s experiment tested how a person’s startle reflex can differ if they were diagnosed with PD or not. This experiment concluded that people that were diagnosed with PD had a greater startle reflex in both anticipated threat and unanticipated threat conditions. The findings prove that PD patients are “higher strung” as society would say than others. Meaning, they jump easier and more frequently at stimuli than other people. Why might this be the reason? Are they similar to Pavlov’s dog and are conditioned to sense fear whenever a threat is present? Is there something inherently different about their brain makeup or chemistry? Szalavitz tries to answer this question in her article titled “How Terror Hijacks the Brain”.
            Szalavitz talks about how the brain reacts to panic and terror. The researcher she interviewed states “when people are terrorized, the smartest parts of our brain tend to shut down”.  She then goes on to say how terrorists play off of that feeling of terror and how we can combat it. The article states, “Traumatic events typically evoke a whole suite of brain responses, such as making people faster to startle, increasing their reaction time and producing hypervigilance to any type of sensation that might be linked with the threatening experience. And this warping of perspective is exactly what terrorists aim to achieve” (Szalavitz 2013). During panic, the Flight or fight response goes into a kind of flight. Most logical thinking is gone and people just think in the short term while feeling panic in order to make the panic stop. Therefore, why people that are panicked startle easier. Fear of terrorist is a very real thing in today’s world, especially with the recent terrorist attack in Paris last year and the lasting impression September 11, 2001 left on everyone. However, she gives tools to combating the panic and fear that Terror imposes on people. The most prominent solution was to have a good support system after the trauma happened to avoid a later diagnosis of PD or PTSD.
            Between the two articles, they both come at very similar conclusions. The Szalavitz article “How Terror Hijacks the Brain” complements much of the information in Steward Shankman’s paper. Most notably, how panic and terror affects the body. Both of them comment on how powerful the startle reflex is in humans who experience panic, whether the subjects have Panic Disorder or not. These findings display how powerful the feeling of terror and panic are on the body, especially the brain. The article also stresses the point of taking care of oneself after experiencing a trauma as to avoid future panic and anxiety disorders. So, the next time a person is jumpier than usual, offer your support to help them and calm their mind because they could be going through a crisis or panic attack.
           

Sources:
Shankman, S., Nelson, B., Sarapas, C., Robison-Andrew, E., Campbell, M., Altman, S, Goodman, Sherryl. (2013). A Psychophysiological Investigation of Threat and Reward Sensitivity in Individuals With Panic Disorder and/or Major Depressive Disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122(2), 322-338.
Photos

No comments:

Post a Comment