Hans Eysenck, a Brit born in Germany in 1916, may not be one of the more widely known personality theorists; however, he was one of the finest. And his work is important to panic attack sufferers.
Eysenck believed temperament, a characteristic mode of emotional response, is the featured component of personality. And he believed it was up and running at birth. Now, that isn’t to say he didn’t believe in the influence of environment, it’s just that he reasoned nature, as opposed to nurture, merited top billing with regard to how we think, feel, and behave.
Now, in his PEN (Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism) model, Eysenck submitted there are three dimensions of temperament; what he called “superfactors.†Within the context of panic, I’d like to limit our chat to neuroticism and extraversion.
Neuroticism
People that fall into this dimension are generally fairly calm to very nervous. According to Eysenck, these folks are prone to what he called “neurotic†problems, issues of a mental or emotional nature that result in stress. Interestingly enough, Uncle Hans focused upon the sympathetic nervous system. Well, panic sufferers know this system well, as under the direction of our fear and emotion circuitry, the sympathetic nervous system launches our physical fight/flight response. According to Eysenck, neuroticism involves, shall we say, a “hyperactive†sympathetic nervous system.
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