Hypnosis for Panic Attacks

Anxiety, anguish, panic attack: what are the differences?

The three words travel together, but they do not mean the same thing.

Anxiety is a fairly diffuse state of worry, turned towards what might happen. It can last for weeks and wear you down quietly, without ever producing an attack. That is the ground covered by our page on stress and anxiety.

Anguish is a sharper form of it, with very distinct bodily signs: pressure in the chest, shortness of breath, trembling, nausea.

A panic attack is an episode of intense fear that rises very fast and then subsides. France's national health insurance describes an average duration of twenty to thirty minutes.

The Government of Quebec makes a point that reassures a great many people: these attacks are extremely unpleasant, but they carry no medical danger in themselves.

When attacks repeat and the dread of having another one settles in for good, we speak of panic disorder, sometimes accompanied by agoraphobia. It is distinct from fears and phobias, which attach to a specific object or situation.

Hypnosis for Panic Attacks: aims and benefits

Let's start with what it cannot do, because that is what most often unblocks the conversation.

Hypnosis does not put you to sleep. It does not make you lose control. It lets no one act without your knowledge, and you will not say or do anything that makes you uncomfortable.

You stay conscious from beginning to end, you hear everything, and you can interrupt the session whenever you want. Many clients describe a state close to being absorbed in a film, or to those car journeys where you arrive without remembering the route.

If the principle intrigues you, we explain it in detail on our page what is therapeutic hypnosis.

Nor does it make anguish disappear on command. No one serious will promise you that.

What hypnosis support aims at, concretely:

• Regaining quick access to bodily calm, by installing what is called an anchor: a gesture, an image, a specific breath, associated in session with a state of relaxation, and reusable afterwards in the grocery store queue.
• Changing your relationship with physical sensations. In panic disorder, a racing heart is often read as the start of a catastrophe, which makes the heart race further. Hypnosis works precisely on that link.
• Spotting the triggering situations and the mental scenarios that loop before an attack.
• Regaining ground step by step, by mentally preparing avoided situations before facing them for real.
• Recovering better sleep, often the first change people notice.

What the research says

A meta-analysis published in 2019 in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis brought together fifteen studies comparing hypnosis with control conditions for the reduction of anxiety. The authors report a mean effect of 0.79 at the end of the sessions, which counts as a large effect in clinical research.

The most interesting detail lies elsewhere, and it matches our position exactly: hypnosis obtained better results as a complement to other psychological approaches than when used on its own.

That is why we work willingly alongside medical or psychological follow-up, and why we encourage you to have one.

How a Hypnosis session on anxiety unfolds

First: the interview. Twenty to thirty minutes of conversation. How long it has been going on, in which situations, what has already been tried, what treatment or follow-up you are currently under. This step also serves to check that hypnosis is relevant for you, and to redirect you if it is not.

We define a concrete objective. Not "feeling better", but something verifiable: crossing the Jacques-Cartier bridge again, sleeping without checking your pulse, sitting through a meeting without locating the exit.

The induction. The practitioner guides you towards a state of relaxation and focused attention, drawing on breathing, voice and imagery. You stay seated or lying down, fully dressed, eyes usually closed.

The work itself. It is built to measure. On anxiety, it often involves setting up a safe mental place, putting an anchor in place, changing the mental images that anticipate an attack, and gradually preparing the avoided situations.

The return and what follows. You talk over what happened. You almost always leave with a self-hypnosis or breathing exercise to practise between sessions, because that is where much of the work happens.

The full sequence, step by step, is described on our page what to expect in a hypnosis session.

And if an attack occurs during the session? It happens, rarely, and it is not a problem. Your practitioner supports you through it. It is sometimes even a useful opportunity to work.

How many sessions? For anxiety, support is generally counted in a handful of sessions rather than in years, but anyone who announces a precise figure before having met you is selling you something. The subject is discussed at the first interview.