Acute Stress
Acute Stress is defined as a reaction to a traumatic exposure. An individual has “directly experienced threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violation in one or more of the following ways:” either experiencing the event directly, being in the presence of an event as it occurs to others or finding out that the event has occurred to a “family member or close friend” [APA, 2013, p. 280]. For this criteria to be met, the trauma must have been “violent or accidental” [APA, 2013, p. 280]. Lastly, the individual needs to have “repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event.. . .[including] first responders collecting human remains, police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse” [p. 280]. The DSM-5 [APA, 2013] notes that this type of exposure does not occur through “electronic media, television, movies, or pictures, unless this exposure is work related” [p. 280].
Panic Episodes
A panic attack is uncomfortable and for most people feel like they are dying. A panic episode can feel like intense anxiety all of a sudden. Panic attacks can occur with symptoms including shaking, disorientated, nauseated with a rapid heartbeat, tightening in the throat, dry mouth, difficulty breathing, sweating and dizziness. Many describe symptoms coming out of the blue while awake and asleep. The symptoms can last anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour or more, experienced rarely to cycling throughout the day. The symptoms of panic episodes are treatable, and in my experience can be interrupted within 5 or more sessions by the use of calming strategies and understanding of our human neurological functioning.
