TAG | Panic
Like most Canadians, I was glued to the screen last night following Canada’s Olympic team on its march to gold against the team from Slovakia. Our national level of comfort was jolted by the Slovaks second goal to close the margin in the third period to a nail-biting 3-2 with minutes to play. Watching our team lose their composure, as they frantically tried to prevent that tying goal was described by one hockey commentator as panic. As everyone knows, we ended-up with the victory, but we also panicked.
As a psychologist who has treated hundreds to patients with panic attacks I wondered about what advice I might give Team Canada following their collective panic.
As good clinicians are aware, I would not suggest the seemingly easy answer of “forget about it, there’s another game to play.”
Panic is an unpleasant experience. By definition, panic is a self-propagating process where specific thinking leads to greater arousal and greater fear. Panic patients narrow their attention to focus on the catastrophic. Their decision-making shifts to reducing harm and consciousness moves to a point of external observation rather than being integrated in the flow of current reality. The problem with “forgetting about it,” is that panic patients don’t; they silently worry about it and live in terror that it will happen again.
Hockey · Panic · Team Canada
