The best treatment facility for panic disorder should offer holistic treatment with medication and cognitive and behavioral therapy. The medications generally prescribed for the management of the disorder are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These are a class of antidepressants. Some of the drugs belonging to this class are sertraline, paroxetine, and fluoxetine. Other medications prescribed by a mental health rehab facility are serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), antiepileptic drugs, benzodiazepines, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).
Cognitive restructuring is a part of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which helps a patient restructure their negative thoughts. The initial part of therapy is informational in which a patient is made to understand about their mental disorder. Mostly people associate this with going crazy or think that an attack might induce a heart attack. Cognitive restructuring helps to change these negative thoughts into more realistic and positive ones. It also enables a person to identify their triggers which could be a situation, a change in heartbeat or even a thought. The therapy helps one to differentiate a trigger from a panic attack so that the trigger becomes powerless for at least sometime.
People with panic disorder fear more about getting an attack rather than fearing a situation or an object. For instance, a person might be grappling with the fear of flying not because they fear that the plane may crash but because they fear that they may have an attack on the plane. So the fear is mostly about triggering of the physical symptoms of a panic attack. Here, behavioral therapy, especially its component interoceptive exposure, plays an important role.
Interoceptive exposure is similar to systematic desensitization, wherein, it stresses on the actual physical symptoms of the attack. This can help one experience the physical symptoms of an attack, however, in a controlled or non-dangerous manner, teaching the patient that the symptoms need not mean a full-blown attack.
Another component of behavioral therapy is in vivo exposure which is about disintegrating a fearful situation into smaller steps and taking one step at a time until one masters the art of taking the most difficult or fearful step.
Additionally, there are some relaxation techniques that teach a patient how to control the intensity of their physical symptoms, like a rapid breathing rate. Finally, a support group can also help immensely as it offers a platform for people facing the same struggles to come together and share their concerns with each other.