Panic is one of those words that can be safely used in casual conversation. Meanwhile, it relates to a diagnosable mental health condition in other contexts. While in the throes of anxiety, people can experience high levels of temporarily uncontrollable panic. Fear takes control severely and suddenly. From a rising heart rate to dizziness to nausea to chills, the symptoms typically last a few minutes but feel like they will never stop.
Individuals who struggle with panic attacks live in dread of them reappearing. If they can learn to better identify and monitor the triggers, they can dramatically reduce such fear. This is where interoceptive exposure therapy becomes something to consider.
What Is Interoceptive Exposure Therapy?
Let’s say that you begin to hyperventilate every time you feel anxious or panicky. This could lead you to associate rapid breathing with a looming panic attack. Therefore, you’d benefit greatly if you wouldn’t automatically make such an assumption. After, there are plenty of good reasons why you may breathe more quickly.
An interoceptive exposure therapist might ask you to engage in physical activity. During exercise, your body needs more oxygen and thus increases your rate of breathing. The more you understand that it has nothing to do with panic attacks or anxiety disorders, the more likely you will lose your fear of hyperventilating. By proxy, this decreases the incidence of anxiety or panic attacks in your life.
It’s easy to see what the word “exposure” is in the therapy’s name. Interoceptive, on the other hand, relates to a person’s ability to become aware of their body’s internal sensations, for example: breathing. When an internal sensation is discovered to be harmless, it loses its propensity for causing fear, dread, anxiety, and panic.
The Benefits of Interoceptive Exposure Therapy
- It’s Convincing: Because the person is directly learning how to identify cause and effect, interoceptive exposure therapy provides convincing evidence that can rapidly contribute to new perceptions.
- Getting Comfortable with Your Body: During interoceptive exposure therapy sessions, the client can become more familiar with and connected to their own bodies. The physical sensations they experience no longer appear to be so mysterious or potentially frightening.
- Structured Therapy: The simple design of interoceptive exposure therapy makes this approach more easily repeatable and controllable. Depending on the specifics of their cases, each person can be exposed to stimuli in a manner that best addresses their needs and limits.
- Short-Term: Interoceptive exposure therapy typically lasts no more than 10 sessions (but that can vary based on your particular situation).
How Does Interoceptive Exposure Therapy Treatment Work?
Generally speaking, this treatment approach takes place over these three phases:
- The therapist and client work together to discern which exposures are likely to result in maximum progress. During the early sessions, there is an exploration of the client’s primary panic symptoms to identify where to aim the treatment’s focus.
- Moving forward, the practices are ranked into a hierarchy. Which actions cause the most and the least anxiety? From there, a plan is constructed as to how to best proceed. Most often, this means you start with whatever causes the most minor reactions.
- In phase three, the client begins with the lowest-ranked practice. The goal is to move up the hierarchy as you recognize that what once caused fear now provokes smaller and smaller reactions.
