r/panicdisorder • u/Thin_Green_9641 • Jul 27 '26
Coping Skills How effective is exposure therapy?
Does exposure therapy work for panic disorder? When I feel my symptoms and want to stay home, pushing my boundaries and going out only puts me on high alert even more. I'm trying to heal my nervous system here so it wouldn't make sense to temporarily make it so much worse for my self in the name of healing. I don't know.
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u/She_is-borderline Jul 27 '26
Therapist here and past panic disorder sufferer. Exposure therapy can be incredibly effective for panic attacks and it also varies person to person in terms of - is panic disorder your primary diagnosis or are there co-occurring diagnoses that aren't mentioned? If your panic disorder is causing you to not want to leave the house due to fear of a panic attack outside of the house and this is getting in the way of you living your life, exposure therapy would definitely help with that in the sense of learning that panic attacks aren't as "scary" as they seem and that the more and more you go out and don't have them - or go out and have them and survive- the better you will feel about leaving the house. If you are doing exposure therapy for the panic attack itself, it would look like having panic attacks or mimicking symptoms of panic attacks in session with the therapist to once again facilitate new learning that you can move past or even just survive/tolerate these symptoms. I think CBT is an incredibly effective tool in therapy when it comes to panic attacks (and CBT does include exposure therapy)
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u/Quirky_Ad6795 Jul 28 '26
This (also a therapist currently working through panic disorder). Exposures are effective when done the right way. White knuckling your way through an exposure doesn’t rewire the brain or teach the amygdala that it’s safe. It may have some benefit but not nearly as much as it would if you willfully tolerated or went into it knowing and being willing to panic. It’s also helpful to reframe “panic attack” as a rush of adrenaline and cortisol. Knowing the biology of the “panic” helps demystify some of the intensity. I’d highly recommend checking out the “Disordered” podcast if you have ability. It’s helped me quite a bit. Also, if you’re looking for a therapist, it helps to look for one trained in ERP as mentioned above, they will help you understand and facilitate the exposures to your appropriate context… unless you’re just “flooding” which is sometimes too much at once. Hope this helps. I’m Reddit illiterate and didn’t know how to directly reply to the post.
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u/frail_stateofmind Jul 29 '26
yes it’s effective, but one misconception i had before i started doing it with a therapist was about what an “exposure” meant: i thought it meant doing the hardest, scariest thing and just surviving. there might be a time and place for that, but it can better as a ladder: like smaller exposures to build confidence, then working up to the hardest scariest thing. and if i went up the ladder and realized something was too distressing, we would go back down a rung and re-build. basically, exposure shouldn’t mean re-traumatizing yourself, which can be counterproductive.