When the general public hears words like anxiety and panic attacks, immediately they envision psychotherapy, medications, mental disorders, and other worse case scenarios.
Fact is, anyone can have an incidence or two or even three anxiety attacks in their lifetime and not need any therapeutic approaches.
The reason is that everyone fears something or can develop a fear over the thought of something.
It is perfectly normal and it is not a cause for wild goose chases looking for the next available psychoanalyst or psychiatrist.
A fear that can make someone panic can happen if there are grounds to that fear.
The unknown 'what if' can drive people nuts, especially if they do not immediately know any specifics.
For example, a presenter on stage can have a slight case of panic attack just before going in front of a huge crowd that is an unknown factor to the usual.
What if...
I make a mistake, they laugh at me, if they don't understand what I am talking about, if I completely forget what I was about to say, if this and that and other things...
These thoughts can destabilize an otherwise stable personality.
Now, if a person has these experiences several times a year, or more than three times in a day, then that is a totally different scenario.
In this case, a thorough investigation on what are triggering the fears should be sought.
Then again, if there is no need for medications, then there is no need for them.
Period.
Only the doctor can prescribe these pharmacotherapeutic agents, there are no over-the-counter replacements.
Some argue that a single occurring panic attack should be treated with suspicion, a lot of psychotherapists would argue otherwise.
If they are treated as if one were walking on a floor filled with glass slivers, then the single episode can become a platform for more fears to accumulate and complicate the life.
Most psychotherapists would simply encourage self-reliance and a trust of the self which are actually enough to fight a fear without need of intervening medications.