Hi podcast fans and colleagues,
Many existential therapists believe that the fear of death is at the root of a great deal of anxiety, if not all anxiety. My clinical experience has not been consistent with this notion. I’ve had nearly 40,000 therapy sessions with patients struggling with anxiety, and very few had the fear of death.
But I have seen three kinds of patients who were afraid of death:
- Patients with panic disorder who think they’re on the verge of death during their panic attack
- Obsessive patients without panic disorder who are preoccupied with the fear of dying.
- Patients with terminal illnesses.
In my experience, all of these categories are pretty easy to treat.
Panic Attack Patients: Some individuals have panic attacks that are triggered by the belief that they are about to die or pass out. In my book, When Panic Attacks, I described a woman name Terri who had struggled with terrifying panic attacks for ten years prior to seeking treatment with me in Philadelphia. She was cured in six minutes when I used the Experimental Technique, which is arguably the most powerful technique ever developed for the treatment of anxiety.
The Experimental Technique is simple, but it requires a lot of courage on the part of the patient AND the therapist. You encourage the patient to do a test of the thought that is triggering the depression or anxiety. During each panic attack, Terri told herself that she was on the verge of a massive heart attack and that her windpipe was about to close off so that she wouldn’t be able to breath. If you had thoughts like that, and you believed them, you’d feel panic too!
With Terri’s permission, I induced a massive panic attack in the office, and then persuaded her to test her belief that she was having a heart attack by doing strenuous aerobics in the office. The video is mind blowing, as you see her going from sobbing and terror to uncontrollable laughter in just six minutes. And that ended ten years of misery.
Of course, the Experimental Technique is not a formula, since the experiment that every patient does will be different. That’s because we all have our own, unique negative thoughts when we’re struggling with depression or anxiety. Jumping jacks is NOT a treatment for panic attacks, depression, or anything else!
I hope to show the Terri video in my upcoming, May 19, 2019 workshop on the treatment of anxiety. If you think you might like to attend, you can find some information below.
Panic Disorder has become one of the easiest forms of anxiety to treat. Some panic patients do not fear death, but the fear of losing control and becoming insane. This fear can also be treated quickly with the Experimental Technique, but the experiment will be radically different. IN addition, the Experimental Technique is only one of many techniques that can lead to rapid recovery from all forms of anxiety, and not just panic attacks.
Patients without panic attacks who fear death. These patients can usually be treated rapidly as well. You’ll find out how in this ten-minute podcast on overcoming the fear of death! If you fear death, or have patients who are afraid of death, try the simple and fast method I describe in the podcast. You’ll probably think it couldn’t possibly help—and then you may discover that your fear of death has suddenly disappeared!
Patients with a terminal illness. These patients are usually also very easy to treat, since the thoughts that trigger their feelings of anxiety and depression are nearly always distorted. If you’d like to listen to a live therapy session with a dear colleague who was diagnosed unexpectedly with stage 4 lung cancer, click this link. I think you’ll find the session with Marilyn incredibly inspiring, and surprising as well. Or, to use a term Marilyn used—mind blowing!
Although we treated Marilyn in a single session, we broke it up into three podcasts. Here are the links to the others:
| 050 | Live Session (Marilyn) — Agenda Setting (Part 2) |
69 |
| 051 | Live Session (Marilyn) — Methods, Relapse Prevention (Part 3) | 89 |
Below you’ll find descriptions of three upcoming workshops on the treatment of depression and anxiety. I hope to see you at one of them!
One last thing! Although very few of my patients have feared the death that comes at the end of our life, almost all have feared the “Great Death” of the “ego,” or “self,” that happens when we are still alive. There are, in fact, not one but four Great Deaths, and they each lead to a different type of enlightenment that correspond to recovery from depression, anxiety disorders, relationship conflicts, and habits and addictions. I even have a chapter on these four Great Deaths in my new book, which is nearing completion. The chapter is entitled, “How to Join the Grateful Dead!”
If you can’t wait for the new book, you can link to a FB Live show that Mike Christensen and I did on the Four Great Deaths in April of 2018.
David
