ABSTRACT
A number of anxiety disorders are recognized, and a feature of many of them is panic attacks. A panic attack is a period of intense fear or discomfort commencing suddenly, and peaking within 10 min. While most of the reader might be apprehensive when faced with many of these classes of object, in phobias the fear is pervasive and debilitating, including the symptoms of panic attacks. It is widely believed that specific phobias result from learned associations between the physical sensations of fear and particular objects which become the phobic object. The preparedness theory suggests that the people have evolved a readiness to respond with fear to certain classes of (dangerous) natural stimuli, making it more likely that phobias will develop to those. Most sufferers, however, will at some time experience one of the acute anxiety disorders, or sometimes depression. Cognitive theorists argue that sufferers adopt particular cognitive style characterized by pessimism, and the belief that unpleasant events are unpredictable.
