Anxiety and Panic · Berlin
Anxiety, the Body and Everyday Life
The heart begins to race, breathing becomes short, the hands tremble or the ground suddenly seems unsteady. These reactions can feel so immediate that, for a moment, little else matters. At the conSenso® Practice in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, we support people experiencing anxiety and panic when bodily alarm responses, fear of the next attack or persistent inner vigilance begin to restrict everyday life.
A panic attack can arise unexpectedly and feel threatening, even though little may be visible from the outside. Some people experience isolated attacks. For others, the fear of recurrence remains and begins to influence decisions, journeys or relationships.
Anxiety is not a weakness, and physical symptoms are not imagined. What matters is how they present, what intensifies them and whether the body can return to a state of calm between reactions.
Palpitations, pressure in the chest, shortness of breath, dizziness, trembling, nausea or sudden heat can be so pronounced that they feel like a physical emergency.
The body reacts as though immediate protection were necessary. Attention and muscular tension change, breathing quickens and the surroundings may briefly feel unfamiliar or unreal.
During a panic attack, it is often not only fear that is experienced. The body’s own signals can themselves feel threatening: the heart might fail, breathing might stop or control might be lost.
The more closely every change is monitored, the more attention can narrow around the body. An ordinary heartbeat or a brief moment of dizziness may then more readily trigger renewed fear.
Fear of Fear Itself
After a panic attack, the fear that it could return at any moment may remain. Routes are planned more carefully, exits are sought out or situations are approached only with someone familiar.
This caution is understandable at first. It is intended to create safety. Yet when more and more places, activities or bodily sensations are avoided, life can gradually become narrower.
The aim is not to overcome anxiety through willpower. What matters is regaining the ability to distinguish between actual danger and the body repeating a familiar alarm response.
Public transport, queues, car journeys, larger shops or being alone can become difficult when there is concern about not being able to leave a situation quickly enough.
Avoidance is not a sign of weakness. It shows how strongly the body is trying to prevent another overwhelming experience. At the same time, it can increasingly restrict confidence in one’s own freedom of movement.
Some people experience not only individual panic attacks but a persistent state of inner readiness. Shoulders and jaw remain tense, the abdomen stays unsettled, and sounds or bodily sensations are more readily perceived as threatening.
The body seems to wait for the next signal. Calm no longer feels self-evident, but something that must be checked again and again.
Persistent vigilance can make it difficult to fall asleep or leave sleep light and interrupted. The following day, concentration may be harder and bodily sensations more difficult to interpret calmly.
In this way, fatigue and anxiety can intensify one another: an exhausted body reacts more sensitively, while inner unrest prevents genuine recovery.
Not everyone remains continuously tense. After prolonged periods of alarm, a sense of emptiness, lack of strength or withdrawal may also emerge.
The shift between heightened arousal and exhaustion can be difficult to understand. Both states may be viewed as responses of a body that has had to manage a great deal over a prolonged period.
Taking Physical Symptoms Seriously
Panic can feel like a physical emergency. Similar symptoms can, however, have other causes.
New, unusually severe or unexplained chest pain, fainting, marked shortness of breath, signs of paralysis or other acute physical changes require immediate medical assessment.
Medical or psychotherapeutic treatment may also be important when panic attacks are already known and will be taken into account in our support.
The conSenso® Practice is not a psychotherapeutic or psychiatric emergency service. In an acute mental health crisis, or if you can no longer ensure your own safety, please call the emergency services on 112 or contact the Berlin Crisis Service, which is available around the clock, free of charge and anonymously if desired.
conSenso® Practice 1 · Wilmersdorf
Body-psychotherapeutic support for anxiety and panic takes place at Pfalzburger Straße 43 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.
The undisturbed individual appointment allows time to consider bodily reactions and personal connections without other treatments taking place next door or people waiting in a waiting room.
Support does not begin with pressure or with the demand simply to endure anxiety. It is guided by what can be perceived without becoming overwhelming again.
The aim is not to suppress anxiety. It is to become able to perceive bodily signals again without feeling entirely at their mercy.
Complimentary introductory consultation
In the complimentary introductory consultation, you can describe how anxiety shows itself in your body, whether panic attacks arise suddenly and which situations you now avoid.
Existing medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, and the question of what helps you feel safe in a therapeutic setting, may also be important for an initial orientation. You do not need to be able to tell or explain everything at this stage.
