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Psychological Dynamics in the Development Process of Panic Disorder: A Qualitative Study on a Family Therapy Case

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Abstract

Panic disorder (PD) affects family members and can be influenced by familial factors. Adverse family events may contribute to anxiety and PD. We examined a family therapy case of a client with PD in South Korea. We used a thematic analysis to analyze therapy transcripts and video recordings and displayed our findings using a network. We identified five stages of the psychological process in the development of PD: (1) formation of anxiety, (2) sheltered life, (3) crisis, (4) loss of haven, and (5) inner breakdown. External situations, family dynamics, and psychological experiences at each stage are examined. Family dynamics that occurred as the family coped with external situations contributed to the client’s psychological experiences, which triggered anxiety that led to PD. This study suggests family dynamics can be associated with one’s internal experiences that could lead to PD, highlighting the importance of functional family dynamics and coping when facing crises.

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Data Availability

The data used in this study can be accessed upon request to the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to ethical reasons.

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Funding

The authors declare that no grant or funds were received from any agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Welfare, Soongsil University, 369 Sangdo-Ro Dongjak-Gu, Seoul, 156-743, South Korea

    Hyerin Moon, Tai-Young Park, Yeong-Yun Bae &  Chunhua-Chi

  2. School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Yanghyun Park

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  1. Hyerin Moon
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  2. Tai-Young Park
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  3. Yanghyun Park
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  4. Yeong-Yun Bae
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  5. Chunhua-Chi
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Contributions

Hyerin Moon: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing – original draft; Tai-Young Park: resources; supervision, writing – original draft; Yanghyun Park: writing – review & editing; Yeong-Yun Bae: visualization; Chunhua-Chi: visualization.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tai-Young Park.

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Competing Interests

The authors declare that there are no competing interests that could have influenced this study.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by Soongsil University IRB.

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Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study.

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Human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the manuscript.

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Written informed consent was obtained from the study participants for the publication of this case study.

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Moon, H., Park, TY., Park, Y. et al. Psychological Dynamics in the Development Process of Panic Disorder: A Qualitative Study on a Family Therapy Case. J Contemp Psychother (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-024-09616-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-024-09616-y

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