My experience of witnessing others in panic/anxiety attacks is not from tv and movies.

In real life I run a support group for women survivors of child sexual abuse. Not a meeting or phone call with and from these terrific, strong women goes byt without someone (including myself here) having to deal with a panic anxiety attack.

In the group the way we handle this is the person who is experiencing the panic anxiety attacks lets others in the group know what they need.

If that person does not say anything about what is going on with them and why they got triggered we continue by staying on track of the activity or discussion going on already.

The reason we do it this way is because different people handle their panic/anxiety feelings in different ways.

Sometimes turning the focus off the topics and activites and on to the person experiencing the panic/anxiety attack will embarrass that person which will make the situation even worse.

I have also found that with running such groups theres always that one that realizes a panic attack can divert others off of the uncomfortable topic being discussed and then the group is "held captive" of being the panic attack persons audiance".

This kind of behavior serves its purpose in that the person does not want to discuss that topic but they want the attention of remaining in the group and having everthing center upon them.

Instead of finding our group to help themselves by taking care of their own problems these type people create problems for attention and so forth.

Yes there may be a perfectly good reason such as being abused as a child behind this behavior but this kind of behaviior is abusive to others in that they are are once again being held captive without their permission to another persons own thrills and problems, which is what our abusers did to us.

It also prevents others from accomplishing their own goals of helping themselves to heal and have a better life.

Therefore in our group we have set guidlines that if a panic attack is past the point of where grounding exercises do not work and lasts more than a three minutes (which is a long time if you have ever actually timed a panic anxiety attack and or experienced one) that person must leave the group and contact their treatment professional or other support person that can spend the unlimited time of getting that panic anxiety attack under control.

Panic anxiety attacks that last indefinately and cannot be controlled by grounding relaxation techniques need the help of treatment professionals. We are not practicing therapists while attending this group and only the persons treatment providor should handle such situations of this magnatude, for then the situation is most likely a medication need or change type problem.

Having this type of protocal in our real life group has cut the panic attacks down and the person with the panic attack is following what the group was meant for - Helping Ourselves Through Personal Empowerment.

At this group we help ourselves by challenging ourselves to locate activities, techniques and community resourses that we can use ourselves to help ourselves to heal. We are there to help ourselves not perpetrate more abuse by creating situations where the group is held captive to another persons need for problems and chaos for attention.

I weed out a majority of those that are there mainly for the attention and someone to take care of me attitudes by meeting individually filling in an emergency contact list for them to use should they have a problem like this during group and I also do some activities from the text and workbook called The Courage to Heal by Laura Davis with them to get a feel of how ready they are to stay focused on contributing and doing the activites without turning them into attention seeking take care of me situations.

Occasionally though someone like this gets past me but once in the group and they see that all in the group remain focused on that task at hand of taking care of themselves and letting and expecting others to do the same and remaining on the activities that person who is being counter productive to themselves ends up leaving the group after a couple sessions.

I actually took this idea of protocal from the therapist idea that therapy is what you put into it. A support group works the same way those that are open minded and give it their all will progress and have a great group experience and those that don't - stay stuck in the rut and have not so good group experiences.

The same with panic attacks you can't help someone who doesn't want the help and doesn't try to help themselves.