"I think, therefore, I am" I feel this topic relates to anxiety and making yourelf think you are sick or sad or going to die, or making yourself panic.

I need other suggestions for a paper Im writing

anyone??? Thanks!

Thinking needs to be defined a little deeper looking at the root. Something that altered our stae of mind. Has and had are something that puts a spin on it. One minute you are and something happens and youve been had. Has been is hads best friend to walk us out of the delema of what we thought that threatens us. We are empowered to take the bend in the road to realistic patterns with positive self talk. I think therefore I am. I am going through something that I have to practice and retrain my thought mechanism to not over react because over reacting causes anxiety and its not realistic and is not productive. In truth stress only makes things worse.

CG -

I would say that your quote could be more accurately restated for those of us with anxiety and panic disorder as "I worry, therefore I panic". That is to say, most of us tend to create a lot of our own anxiety. We anticipate and fear until we generate the very emotions and body reactions that we are trying so desperately to avoid. It's the classic self-fulfilling prophecy.

As you know, so many of us go through anticipatory anxiety, that is we expect to feel anxious or panicky prior to doing something or getting into a similar situation that has produced anxiety in the past. All to often, that anticipation of fear generates high anxiety or even a full blown panic attack. The fear feeds on itself. Breaking that cycle of negative thinking is the key to recovery for almost all of us.

Of course those with spontaneous panic attacks are a special case. But even they can limit the severity and duration of the attack by not worrying about the symptoms or anticipating that they will get worse or not stop. Again, fear begets fear.