Assessing and Treating Patient With Chronic Panic Disorder Using Cognitive-Constructive Psychotherapy

In cognitive-constructive psychotherapy, the aim is to understand the origins of a mental health problem beginning from the early attachment relationship, which is thought to regulate later interaction with the environment. People participate in this interaction consciously and unconsciously in keeping with their expectations and receive information in accordance with these expectations. The ways in which information is processed are thus strengthened and the significances given to experiences become stabilized. As people have a need to maintain an experience of the continuity of the self and of the consistency of their inner world, they will also hold on to harmful experiences. That is why change takes time, especially in the case of long-term disturbances. A patient with panic disorder perceives the world through a feeling of security and insecurity, which is regulated by a sense of control in particular. This article describes the psychotherapy process of a patient with panic disorder. In this process,...