Panic Disorder
- Panic Attack
- Panic Disorder
- Recurrent Panic Attacks
- Anticipatory Anxiety
- Agoraphobia
- Hypochondriasis
- Demoralisation
- Epidemiology
- Age of Onset
- Situation of Onset
- Stressful Life Events
- Early Life Events
- Maternal Over-Protection
- Separation Anxiety
- Short and Long-term Outcomes
- Comorbidity
- Panic Disorder: Pathogenesis
- Biological Findings
- Provocative Agents
- Neurotransmitter Systems
- Neuroanatomical Models
- Brain Imaging
- Psychological Models
- Psychodynamic Models
- Behavioural Models
- Cognitive Models
- Areas of Controversy and Debate
- The Evolutionary Perspective
- Panic Disorder: Treatment
- Pharmacotherapy
- Benzodiazepines
- Tricyclic Antidepressants
- Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors
- Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors
- Other Drugs
- Psychotherapy
Maternal Over Protection
It is a common clinical impression that the parents of patients with PD appear to be over-protective, stern and rigid. On empirical grounds, Terhune, Webster and Tucker all described a background of parental over-protection (especially maternal) in their agoraphobic patients. Among the controlled studies, using the Maternal Overprotection Questionnaire. Solyom et al. (1976) found that the mothers of agoraphobics were more protective than those of normal controls.Parker, using the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), reported that patients
suffering from anxiety neurosis scored both their parents as significantly less caring and more over-protective than did matched normal controls, whereas another study by Parker found that agoraphobics differed from controls only on the scale measuring maternal care, which was reduced among patients. (Using the PBI in operationally defined panic disorder, it was found that patients affected by PD reported childhood interactions with significantly less caring and more controlling parents. No differences emerged between agoraphobic and non-agoraphobic patients, nor was there any correlation with the level of phobic avoidance. However, although PBI has been shown to be an acceptable measure of actual and not merely perceived parental characteristics, it is possible that the subjects with emotional pathology might search for the causes of their problems in the past: they might attribute a more negative value to their earlier interactions with parents than they in fact warrant. On other hand, as a family concentration of anxiety does exist, it is reasonable to conceive that parents with an anxious or phobic condition might have reduced capacity to care for children and might over-protect the child as they protect themselves from the feared situations. Conversely, phobic-type behaviours by children, such as those frequently reported in the past personal history of patients with PD, could induce reactions of over-protection in their parents.