Panic Disorder across the Shrink Network.
The acute attack and the slow sensitization, covered from every angle.
Reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA
Panic disorder is two conditions in one. The acute panic attack is dramatic and unmistakable: the racing heart, the dread, the certainty that something is medically wrong. The longer-term sensitization is quieter: the slow narrowing of life around places where attacks have happened, the constant monitoring of the body's signals, the avoidance pattern that quietly takes over.
Each site in the Shrink Network covers panic from a different angle. The acute biology lives on Shrinkopedia. The lived experience and the maps of how panic clusters live on AnxietyResource. The medication options live on PsychiatryRx. The care option lives on shrinkMD.
This cluster page collects them. Panic responds well to evidence-based treatment, usually exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy plus an SSRI, but treatment works better when the person has a clear picture of what panic actually is and how the cluster fits together. That picture is what this cluster is for.
Shrinkopedia
Panic Disorder
The clinical encyclopedia entry. What panic disorder is, what distinguishes a panic attack from a panic disorder, and the treatments with the strongest evidence.
Read on Shrinkopedia →AnxietyResource
The Panic Map
The visual cluster page. A central node labeled Panic with eight related experiences (heart palpitations, dizziness, derealization, sensitization, catastrophic thoughts, chest tightness, avoidance, shortness of breath).
Open the Panic Map →AnxietyResearch
Interoceptive exposure and CBT for panic disorder
The evidence layer. What the research actually says about exposure-based CBT for panic and the sensitization cycle.
Open AnxietyResearch →PsychiatryRx
SSRIs and benzodiazepines for panic
The medication layer. SSRIs as the long-term treatment, benzodiazepines as the bridge: what they do, what they don't do, and the cautions.
Open PsychiatryRx →shrinQ
When panic becomes a pattern
The pattern layer. Once the acute attacks have eased, the residual cluster (the monitoring, the avoidance, the safety behaviors) is its own work. shrinQ addresses the pattern layer.
Open shrinQ →shrinkMD
Panic care at shrinkMD
The care option. Telepsychiatry for panic disorder, with experience in the SSRI-and-exposure combination that has the strongest evidence.
Get care at shrinkMD →shariqrefai.com
On the first attack
The long-form reflective layer. Essays on what panic teaches you, how recovery actually unfolds, and the slow return to the places that fear had taken away.
Read essays →Panic is one of the conditions with the strongest evidence-based treatment paths in mental health. Most people who get the right combination of exposure and medication recover meaningfully within months. The cluster above is the map of the resources that make that recovery process visible, so the work isn't just trial and error.