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.
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