Some psychological terms can be confusing. Some words may be unfamiliar to the general public. A mental health term may have a different meaning when it is used in everyday speech. For example, depressed is a term commonly used to mean sad, but the word “depressed” in a psychiatric context takes on a whole new meaning.

Because I have a background in psychology, feel free to use the comments section to ask questions about psychological terms that you may have whether your question is about anxiety disorders or other psychological topics or other mental illnesses.

People may become confused by the use of “panic attacks” and “anxiety attacks.” What is the difference between panic attacks and anxiety attacks? These terms are synonymous and often used interchangeably. There is no difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack.

The psychological disorder most commonly associated with panic attacks is panic disorder. Panic attacks can occur with other psychiatric disorders as well. A panic attack includes the sudden development of four or more anxiety symptoms like pounding or racing heart, numbness, dizziness, sweating, fear of dying, nausea, and trembling or shaking. Many of these separate anxiety symptoms of panic attacks can be present with other anxiety disorders.

Panic attacks typically last for several minutes. Having some panic attack symptoms is not enough to warrant a diagnosis of panic disorder. The diagnosis of panic disorder not only requires the presence of four of these symptoms, but the symptoms must have a sudden onset and the panic attacks must be recurring.

Panic and anxiety attacks http Internet resources can be valuable sources of information to learn about panic attacks. One informative panic and anxiety attack http resource is the About.com page on panic disorder. This website includes information about the symptoms of anxiety attacks, treatments, and other panic attack facts.

WebMD.com also has a wealth of information on anxiety disorders and panic attacks. This panic and anxiety attacks http resource includes many panic attack facts and information on anxiety disorders.

I have written several panic and anxiety attacks http resources as articles on PTSD Central as well as my article called “Stopping Anxiety Attacks with Positive Self-Talk” on HubPages.com. I will continue to add more articles about panic attacks and anxiety disorders to both websites.