Panic Free by Tom Bunn

Author:Tom Bunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New World Library

CHAPTER 16

Establishing Automatic Alarm Attenuation

Alarm attenuation is vital. It keeps us from being overwhelmed, thus allowing us to think clearly enough to determine whether a threat is real or imaginary. If we determine that the threat is real, alarm attenuation enables us to down-regulate enough to develop a strategy to deal with the situation. If your capacity for alarm attenuation has not been fully developed, the exercises in this book can help.

You can establish automatic alarm attenuation by linking the feeling of alarm to the presence — or a replica of the presence — of an attuned and nonjudgmental person. As Stephen Porges explains, a person who is physically and emotionally safe to be with activates the parasympathetic nervous system. The person’s face, voice, and touch unconsciously transmit signals that stimulate vagal braking, which overrides the effects of stress hormones. Since reception of these signals takes place outside consciousness, Porges refers to it not as perception but as neuroception. Neuroception of the person’s safety signals activates your calming parasympathetic nervous system, slows your heart rate, and relaxes you. When this happens, you may feel your guard let down. Once you have linked feeling alarmed to a calming presence that enables you to override the effects of stress hormones, alarm attenuation takes place automatically.

Without alarm attenuation, once we become alarmed, we remain in that state until the stress hormones burn off. Extended alarm can trigger continued release of stress hormones and lead to high anxiety or panic. For example, I had a client who feared flying and felt alarmed even when seeing his digital clock read 737 or another airliner model number. His parents had been in a concentration camp during World War II. They taught him that survival depended on doing as one was told, not being noticed, and not asking questions. With his natural curiosity discouraged, his reflective function was also underdeveloped and subject to collapse under even moderate stress. Thus, the stress hormones produced by the sight of the number 737 were enough to shut down his reflective function and allow psychic equivalence to occur. Psychic equivalence is like a state of temporary schizophrenia. For this client, it made the thought of being trapped in a plane and plunging to the ground feel real and throw him into panic.

But the power of relationship is remarkable. He and I were able to find a memory that enabled him to avoid psychic equivalence, separate imagination from reality, and control panic. As a child, my client used to get into his father’s Buick and go with him to Dunkin’ Donuts. They had coffee and donuts together as his father smoked a cigarette. On these outings, his father was easygoing. My client experienced these moments with his father as moments of total acceptance. He recalled feeling his guard let down, which indicates full activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. We linked this memory of the Dunkin’ Donuts visits to the feeling of alarm he experienced when thinking about flying.

After he had reinforced

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