2 mins

How can I better manage panic attacks?

Video Description

Elena Touroni, a private psychologist based in Chelsea, talks about the kinds of strategies patients can use to tackle panic attacks, from relaxation techniques to mindfulness. https://www.thechelseapsychologyclinic.com Chelsea Psychology Clinic are a group of London psychologists and psychiatrists offering private psychological therapy and psychiatry treatment from their premises across central London and Chelsea. The private therapy sessions cover the following areas: – Acceptance & Commitment Therapy – Cognitive Analytic Therapy – Cognitive-behavioural Therapy – Couples Therapy – Dialectical-behaviour Therapy – Mentalisation Based Treatment – Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy – Schema Therapy

Video Transcription

You can learn a whole range of relaxation techniques in order to better manage panic attacks. Usually, when we have a panic attack, our breathing is fairly out of control, our heart might be beating very fast. And we might be making all sorts of interpretations of what’s happening in the situation where we might be interpreting the symptoms of the panic attack as having a more physiological course which makes us much more frightened. So you can learn ways of using both relaxation strategies to slow down your breathing, to slow down your thinking, as well as mindfulness-based strategies to be able to stay in the present moment. Notice your emotions, the anxious feelings that you have during a panic attack as a wave that comes and goes and wait until your anxiety dissipates. We also can learn to manage panic attacks by challenging the thoughts that we have, by reminding ourselves that actually what we’re experiencing in the moment is just a panic attack. It isn’t a heart attack. It isn’t something much more sinister and dangerous. And it’s just an emotional response that our body has now that has become very out of control and very generalised to situations that aren’t really threatening. And that it’s something that will dissipate because all emotions peak and then dissipate in time.

Dr Elena Touroni

Dr Elena Touroni

19 June 2022

"Dr. Elena Touroni is a skilled and experienced Consultant Psychologist with a track record of delivering high-quality services for individuals with all common emotional difficulties and those with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is experienced in service design and delivery, the management of multi-disciplinary teams, organisational consultancy, and development and delivery of both national and bespoke training to providers in the statutory and non-statutory sector."

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Dr Elena Touroni

Dr Elena Touroni is a skilled and experienced consultant psychologist with a track record of delivering high-quality services for individuals with all common emotional difficulties and those with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is experienced in service design and delivery, the management of multi-disciplinary teams, organisational consultancy, and development and delivery of both national and bespoke training to providers in the statutory and non-statutory sector.

Having obtained a first degree in Psychology (BSc) at the American College of Greece, she completed her doctoral training at the University of Surrey. Dr Touroni is highly experienced in the assessment and treatment of depression, anxiety, substance misuse, personality disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, adjustment disorder and relationship difficulties. She works with both individuals and couples and can offer therapy in English and Greek.

She is trained in several specialist therapeutic approaches such as Schema Therapy for individuals and couples, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-based approaches and Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT).

Dr Touroni has held a variety of clinical and managerial positions including as Head of Service in the NHS. Further she has held academic positions for the University of Surrey and the Institute of Mental Health lecturing on specialist postgraduate Masters and Doctorate programmes. As well as holding a variety of NHS positions, Dr Touroni is the co-founder of a private practice in Central London that has been a provider of psychological therapy for all common emotional difficulties including personality disorder since 2002.

Dr Touroni has a keen interest in developing preventative approaches for psychological well-being and has been involved in the co-creation of bespoke wellness retreats for transformative change for the past 5 years. She is the founder and one of two directors of The Chelsea Psychology Clinic.