Panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy in a woman with panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

Overview

Panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy (PFPP) is a 24-session, twice-weekly (12 weeks), manualized psychoanalytic psychotherapy with demonstrated preliminary efficacy for panic disorder (PD).^, Given the substantial morbidity and the health care utilization of the PD population,^, coupled with the sizable proportion of such patients who do not respond (or respond inadequately) to alternate treatments (cognitive-behavioral therapy [CBT] and drug therapy),^– PFPP may offer clinicians an additional tool for their therapeutic armamentarium. It may also facilitate a rapprochement between academic psychiatry and psychodynamic perspectives, and a reassessment of the role of psychodynamic therapy as part of the educational experience of residents in training—an experience that has diminished over two decades.