The psychodynamic of panic attacks: A useful integration of psychoanalysis and neuroscience1

This article tries to explain, in the light of some neuroscientific and psychoanalytical considerations, the repetitive pattern of panic attacks. Freud considered the panic attack as an ‘actual neurosis’ not involving any conflictual process. Recent neuroscientific findings indicate that psychosomatic reactions, set off by a danger situation, depend on the primitive circuit of fear (including the amygdala) characterised by its speed, but lack accurate responses and may also be activated by harmless stimuli perceived erroneously as dangerous. The traumatic terror is stored in implicit memory and may be set off by a conditioned stimulus linked to a previous danger situation. In the panic attack, the traumatic event is created by the imagination and this construction (a micro‐delusion), built in loneliness and anxiety, has the same power as the real trauma. A mutual psychosomatic short‐circuit between body and psyche, in which terror reinforces the somatic reactions and the psychic construction, is established. Therefore, it is important to highlight these constructions in order to analyse and transform them. In the second part of the article the author reviews the main psychoanalytical theories about panic attacks, stressing how, in his opinion, panic attack is a consequence of the breakdown of the defence organisation at various levels and may appear during periods of life crisis. Two patients suffering from a deficit of personal identity are presented. The various organisations and the different levels (biological, neuroscientific, associative, traumatic) of the panic attack determine different kinds of therapeutic approaches (pharmacological, cognitive and psychoanalytical). While the psychopharmacological treatment is aimed at reducing the neurovegetative reaction and the cognitive method is attempting to correct the associative and perceptive processes of fear signals, psychoanalytical therapy represents both a specific means to free patients from panic attacks as well as an indispensable route for their emotional growth.     

恐惧管理研究:新热点、质疑与争论

恐惧管理理论(Terror Management Theory,简称TMT)认为,死亡恐惧为人类发展提出了新的适应性问题,多重机制因此进化而来以维护心理平衡。大量的实证研究验证了TMT的基本假设,但在解释死亡突显效应背后的动机上还存在争议。该文首先介绍了由文化世界观、自尊及亲密关系组成的三重防御系统,之后重点评述了批评者从认知闭合、意义维持、联结动机以及控制等视角对死亡突显效应背后真实动机做出的新的阐释,最后指出未来研究应当尝试将死亡觉知的必然性与不确定性所引发的不同效应分离开来。     

Populism and religion: On the politics of fear

Our societies of fear go along with an increase of populist movements in politics. This article explains the basics of populism and shows how easily it joins highly likely political friend‐enemy patterns. Anthropologically, we have to deal with parochial altruism undergirded by a static type of religion. A further step deals with the relationship between politics and fear by referring to terror management theory and its insight into the relationship between mortality and fear. The concluding part addresses ways out of fear and in what way a dynamic type of religion helps to avoid scapegoating and political enmity.     

Assisting Older Women in Combatting Ageist Stereotypes and Improving Attitudes Toward Aging

Ageism is a pervasive force in society that poses a significant threat to the well-being of older women. This article integrates theory, research and practice in an examination of ageism as it relates to therapy with older women. The authors review common stereotypes of older women, and discuss the pervasiveness of these stereotypes using a terror management explanatory framework. Particular attention is also paid to the effects of ageist stereotypes on older women, with especial emphasis on stereotype threat and self-stereotyping concepts. The authors argue that geriatric rehabilitation settings may enhance vulnerability to these negative effects. Finally, strategies for older women to combat ageist stereotypes and develop positive attitudes toward aging are discussed. Implications for therapeutic practice to help older women maintain a satisfying quality of life, despite these stereotypes, are presented throughout the article. The authors recommend interventions embedded in feminist theory, positive psychology, and humanistic and cognitive–behavioral therapies.     

Avoidance Behavior Following Terror Event Exposure: Effects of Perceived Life Threat and Jewish Religious Coping

The current research was designed to examine associations of perceived life threat (PLT) and religious coping with the development of avoidance behavior following terror event exposure. Based upon the terror management theory (TMT), we hypothesized that religious coping, through its effect on religious beliefs as a meaning system, would moderate the impact of threat, as expressed in PLT, on an individual's reaction to terror event exposure, as manifested in avoidance behavior. Participants were 591 Israeli Jewish students who were vicariously or directly exposed to a terror event in the past. We report a significant interaction between PLT and negative religious coping. PLT was positively associated with avoidance behavior but this relationship was more profound among persons who reported high negative religious coping. Secular students reported higher rates of avoidance behavior and negative religious coping and were more likely than religious students to report intrapersonal religious conflict. Our findings suggest that terror event exposure is associated with an elevated sense of threat, which is, at least in part, associated with a weakening of prior religious beliefs.     

From a terror management perspective: The efficacy of self-affirmation on organ donation-related thoughts and intentions in China

ABSTRACT

In 2015, the Chinese government officially abolished the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners. However, the voluntary donor registration rate among the Chinese population is approximately 2% as of January 2020. Guided by self-affirmation theory and terror management theory, the present investigation examined a number of variables that may be related to donor registration intentions and a method to mitigate death thoughts and misconceptions. An online experiment was conducted in which 352 Chinese participants were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation (i.e., affirming values that are important to the participants) or a no-affirmation condition. Results revealed that self-affirmation lowered death thoughts among the participants, which in turn were positively related to organ donation misperceptions. Inconsistent with terror management theory, the level of death thoughts was not directly related to participants’ intentions to register as organ donors. Instead, the relationship between the two was mediated by misperceptions toward organ donation.