101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counseling)

A 40 year old client of mine shared a very unique issue he was facing – panic attacks every weekend. I wondered why he had these panic attacks only on the weekends and asked him to take me through what he does during the weekends. 

He had signed up for multiple dating apps after his recent divorce. Excited about dating and  meeting new prospective partners, he set up meetings over weekends. However, as the weekend approached, his anxiety peaked robbing him of energy and spontaneity. He felt that he seemed to have no control over himself and further added “my anxiety catches me by surprise”. He said this last sentence with a different tone and I felt it was an important place for an intervention.

I was curious to know how an anxiety attack was catching him by surprise. I took a pause and sat with the sentence the client had spoken. With the information I had about the client from previous sessions, I asked the client to replace the word “anxiety” with the word “mother”. The client said “My mother catches me by surprise”. Once he said that, he appeared flushed, bowed his head and had tears in his eyes. The client had got in touch with his real feelings about the weekend.

He recalled that he had to show his parents his report card every weekend after his weekly test. Low marks on his report card would lead to getting beaten by his mother. His mother had 3 things with which she would hit him – if she thought his handwriting was not good enough, she’d beat him with a scale. If his marks were low, she’d use a rod.  If he played with friends for more than half an hour she would hit him with a big, thick stick. As a young boy he always felt anxious starting Friday evening till Monday morning.

The beating stopped when one day, as a 15 year old he held the stick his mother raised to beat him and broke it. Since that incident his mother had stopped beating him. However when he planned his weekends as a 40 year old, the anxiety which is a part of his past subconscious mind got activated  leading to panic attacks

Getting in touch with the past helped him understand the cause of his anxiety during the weekends. I could see his face lightened up a little after that awareness bought him relief. He then made an interesting comment, “I don’t have to take a report card to meet my girlfriend” and we both had a good laugh at that.

Therapist perspective:

The key intervention was made possible by the statement, “anxiety catches me by surprise” Using the information the client had shared in the previous five sessions, I was able to suggest the reframing of his statement. The reframing helped the client make sense of his pattern and find ways to break free of the weekend anxiety. 

Post this, the client sent me a message telling me how comfortable he was during the weekend after his session.

I wonder “We all have our past, how do we learn to leave it in the past “