Panic Flashcards
What did Klein first suggest?
A relationship between panic and separation anxiety.
How is panic different from most forms of anxiety?
Most forms of anxiety involve the fight or flight response which prepares the body for action but panic is almost literally a cry for help.
What is panic?
Panic is a disabling form of anxiety where the animal doesn’t attempt to escape or fight but instead signals for assitance from its family group.
The suggestion that panic is a form of adult separation anxiety is consistent with several sources of evidence..
- Panic has a distinctive response to tricyclic antidepressants rather than anxiolytics.
- Chldhood separation anxiety is also correlated with adult panic disorder.
When is signalling for help an appropriate response to danger?
For dependent infants, although it may also have been adaptive for adults under tribal hunter gatherer conditions.
What did Matthews and Charlton (2000) find?
The study predicted that important features of the subjective content of adult panic would be identical with the content of childhood sepatation anxiety. Three pure cases of panic disorder were interviewed about the subjective experiences of their attacks. The responses were all consistent wth the theory that panic disorder is an adult equivalent of separation anxiety and that human evolutionary history may shapre not only the form of panic attacks but also the specific content.
Definition of panic?
Rapid build-up of anxiety over seconds with physical symptoms being prominent - hyperventilation, palpitations, shaking and nausea.
Is panic an adaptation?
Panic seems to be universal and has a distinctive set of symptoms. One hypothesis is that panic may have been adaptive in ancestral societies on average. If there wasn’t a benefit of panic then evolution would probably have eliminated it.
What are two theories from Klein about the evolutionary significance of panic?
Suffocation alarm and Separation anxiety.
What is the suffocation alarm theory of panic?
The hypothesis is that because of the co-sleeping of mothers and babies sometimes the mother would lie on the baby and suffocate it, this would trigger panic and awake the mother to prevent the baby from dying. Suffocation increases carbon dioxide and lactate and the theory is that adults with panic are hpersensitive to these. This is partially confirmed in experimental studies where CO2 is increased in participants, and those with panic appear sensitive to this. But CO2 may not be the specific trigger therefore the concept of the suffocation alarm seems untrue.
What is the separation anxiety theory of panic?
Panic is a signal for assistance and the idea is that panic is an adult form of separation anxiety.
