This is the second book in The Cure Anxiety Series

It can happen to feel terrified in the midst of people, in closed or open spaces: These are agoraphobia and claustrophobia. You may not be able to take a flight or climb the escalators, or you may not be able to see a cat without shivering. These are phobias that can give rise to panic attacks: Your heartbeat accelerates, your breathing becomes labored, you feel like you are losing control, you seek refuge in avoiding the supposed risks. Fear, however, is a fundamental and reasonable emotion, since it triggers the mechanisms of attack or escape when we find ourselves in danger. It can therefore save our lives, while what can ruin it is the fear of fear, the preventative fear of the psychophysiological reactions that our organism may have in the face of what we perceive as a threat.

It is therefore necessary to put this emotion into the right perspective in order to become its master again. But what is the way out of the vicious circle of self-generating phobia? We do not need a long psychotherapy, but rather a paradoxical strategy that guides us to face fear, indeed to increase it to the point of cancelling it. To recover from panic attacks, in fact, a short targeted therapy is enough, based on the logical and suggestive language of the therapist, on unusual tasks that the patient has to perform to the letter, on the idea that it is necessary to "put out the fire by adding wood".