The simple reason to find about all different kinds of panic attack is that different sorts of attacks have different symptoms, complications and ways of treatment. In order to get your treatment right, you need to diagnose exact type of attack you are going through.
First of all, let’s clear the difference between two more or less similar words which are often spoken interchangeably in our daily lives, panic and anxiety. With many similarities, there is subtle difference between these two words. Basically difference between these conditions is severity and persistence.
Panic symptoms are somewhat more severe than anxieties, but persist for very short period of time. Whereas, anxiety symptoms are somewhat less severe than panic but persist for a long while.
The basic reason to understand the difference between these two words is that they are used in two different types of attacks. It can be easy to confuse the two, resulting in wrong diagnosis of type of attack and wrong way of treatment.
Based upon the triggering situation and its connection with attacks, panic attacks are divided into 3 basic types:
1. Unexpected Panic Attacks
This type of attack occurs spontaneously without regarding the situation which is generally due to panic disorder. There are no clear causes for this attack and one can not associate them with the situation he/she is in. This attack can come while you are working or relaxing irrespective of any situation, the attack is spontaneous and severe.
2. Situationally-bound Panic Attacks
As suggested by name, this type of attack is related to the situation directly. This might be cause of some sort of phobia. For instance, you are suddenly in a situation you fear can bring you in such sort of attack. Phobia can be of any sort, it might be phobia from public speech or phobia from loneliness.
3. Situationally-predisposed Panic Attacks
This type is also triggered due to situation and relates with second type in this respect. The difference between the two types is the frequency of attack. The Situationally-predisposed panic attacks are often quite less frequent then Situationally-bound panic attacks.
This means that you will have this attack for similar reasons but the attacks won’t be on regular basis. For instance, you might not experience any attack during a public speech, but you may experience an attack after it.