Current Perspectives on Panic and Panic Disorder

The emotions of panic, fear, and anxiety are familiar to anyone who has been faced with some threat or danger. However, for some people, rushes of intense fear (i.e., panic at tacks) can occur out of the blue, without any obvious trigger, partic ularly following periods of stress. Furthermore, in a subset of these people, spontaneous panic attacks occur frequently and independently of stressful life events.