From the author: The fashionable and popular term “panic attack”... But what is behind it? Let's try to figure it out... Introducing a panic attack The term "panic" comes from the name of the ancient Greek god Pan, who was half man, half goat and had the ability to cause sudden and inexplicable horror in the human soul. He could suddenly appear before travelers, provoking irrational and extreme fear in them. In the modern era, the first person to explore the term "panic" was Rabelais in 1534. In the clinical environment, the term has a much shorter history, but the symptom is considered to be well described. Currently, psychiatric nosography has a classification and listing of signs of a psychopathological picture in special tables, which offer a codified language for describing cases of the disorder. Unfortunately, the limitations of this classification are often forgotten in clinical use. This causes a lot of confusion. From a methodological point of view, in this case, clarity in the premises is lost, since the therapist forgets that this classification is not a neutral and, especially, not an objective language, but only a dotted line based on derived and shared statistics. All this is important to take into account. According to the DSM-4 classification, a panic attack cannot be codified as an independent disorder, since it can manifest itself in various clinical or non-clinical situations. In this classification, there is no separate diagnosis of “panic attack”; instead, certain anxiety disorders are classified in which panic attacks occur or may occur. What is a “panic attack”? Its essential characteristic is a certain period of intense fear or distress, accompanied by at least four somatic symptoms. It begins suddenly, quickly reaches its maximum manifestation, and is often accompanied by a feeling of danger, imminent disaster and the need for immediate escape. There are three types of panic attacks regarding the modality of the initial manifestation and the reasons that cause them: unexpected panic attacks not associated with any external causes; Situation-triggered panic attacks, in which symptoms appear due to the manifestation or anticipation of a stimulus from the environment or a specific context; situation-sensitive panic attacks, in which the manifestation of a symptom occurs quite often, but is not necessarily associated with the manifestation of any stimulus in a particular specific situation. Panic attacks caused by any situation are more characteristic of social phobia and specific phobias. Subjects suffering from sudden panic attacks describe only very intense fear and anticipation of imminent death, loss of control, myocardial infarction or stroke, or insanity. They also pay attention to an acute desire to escape from the place in which the attack occurred. Based on the following list of symptoms, a panic attack can be recognized and made a descriptive diagnosis. Rapid, strong heartbeat, tachycardia. Sweating. Severe or fine trembling. Shortness of breath, feeling of suffocation. Feeling of asphyxia. .Pain or discomfort in the chest area Nausea, upset stomach. Feeling of decay, instability, dizziness. Loss of sense of reality, depersonalization (feeling of being detached from oneself). Fear of loss of control and madness. Fear of death. Paresthesia (numbness, numbness). Chills, feeling of heat. The prevalence of panic attacks and the seeking of help for this disorder has been constantly increasing in recent years. This is not only due to widespread awareness of panic attacks, but also due to a real increase in the frequency of occurrence. It is impressive that the number of women who apply is almost twice as high as the number of men who apply..