SCIENTIFIC MEETING
Presented by
NPAP AND THE NEW SCHOOL
FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
Department of Philosophy
Maurice Preter, MD
“Panic, Separation Anxiety, Suffocation False Alarms
And Endogenous Opiods”
Panic attacks are a clinical puzzle that has widespread ramifications for psychotherapy. For instance, almost half of panic patients are initially seen in medical emergency rooms, with complaints of chest pain and difficult breathing resembling an acute heart attack. Further, asthma and smoking predispose to panic disorder. To account for such observations, including the striking symptom of air hunger, we have expanded our suffocation false alarm theory in an attempt to subsume the colorful phenomenology of clinical panic, with it’s intriguing antecedents of traumatic loss and separation anxiety, and its respiratory dysregulation under a single dysfunction, that of the body’s own regulatory opioid system.
Dr. Preter is Board Certified in both Neurology and Psychiatry, and divides his professional time between patient care, forensic medical/neuropsychiatric consulting, research in neuropsychiatry, and teaching. Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Faculty, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Associate Professor of Neurology, Downstate Medical Center, his website is www.psychiatryneurology.com.
Discussant: Maggie Zellner, PhD, is a Licensed Psychoanalyst and Behavioral Neuroscientist. She is an advanced candidate at NPAP, Postdoctoral Fellow at Rockefeller University, Chair of the Board of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation, and teaches Neuroscience to Psychoanalysts and Psychotherapists.
Moderator: Carl Jacobs
This Scientific Meeting is the 4th program in the series entitled
“INSTINCT OR INTELLECT: MUST WE CHOOSE”
Celebrating NPAP’s 60th Anniversary
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, at 8:00 PM
Location: Theresa Lang Auditorium, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Second Floor
Admission is Free - All Welcome
A collation will follow the presentation
NPAP Program Committee: Matthias Beier, Carl Jacobs (Chair), S. Montana Katz, Richard Symons, Isolde Keilhofer (MITO)
NPAP . 40 WEST 13th STREET . NEW YORK, NY 10011 . phone 212.924.7440 . fax 212.989.7543 . info@npap.org . www.npap.org