The phone buzzed again—third time, maybe fourth, in just ten minutes. I rubbed my fingertips against my eyelids over and over, until I finally managed to focus on the glowing digits of my wristwatch: 05:45. Not even six. And yet, someone was dead set on speaking to me. Right now.
Still half-asleep, I lifted the phone from its charger and checked the screen: same number, five missed calls. The first came just after five. The rest, logged within the past fifteen minutes. I didn’t recognize the number, but it came through the clinic’s switchboard. I must’ve forgotten to log out of the switchboard app the night before, which meant anyone calling reception got routed straight to me.
Trying to make sense of it all, I grabbed my glasses and walked over to the office. It could be anyone—a patient, a family member, someone overwhelmed by emotion—or worse, someone who’d decided they couldn’t take it anymore. Not a single part of it. Of life.
The phone vibrated again. Same number. Switchboard.
There was no turning back. I couldn’t just sit there and stare. I took a few seconds to gather myself, then swiped the green icon and answered:
“Robert Bernhardsson.”
At this hour, I didn’t bother with the full gsPsychology intro.
Silence on the other end. Like someone had called by mistake. Then—ragged breathing. Quick, shallow.
I waited. Still. More confused than anything.
“Is this the psychologist?” the voice asked, strained, nearly gasping.
“Yes,” I replied. “This is the psychologist.”
There was no need to reflect. I knew that voice. It belonged to a patient of mine; I had assessed for agoraphobia. We’d met a few times at the clinic and talked about setting up a treatment plan—but that was as far as we’d gotten.
“My fingers are tingling. My feet too. It feels like my whole body’s gone numb. It’s prickling. Everywhere!” he said. “And I’m at the gate. Boarding closes in a few minutes. I don’t know what to do. Should I get on the plane?”
Still confused, and a little surprised, I needed to be sure I’d heard him right—that he was, in fact, at an airport, about to board a flight.
“You’re about to board a plane? And your fingers are tingling?”
“Yes, exactly! And if I don’t board now, I’ll miss the whole damn thing. But the prickling’s driving me crazy. It started last night. I woke up with numb hands, drenched in sweat, felt like I was suffocating. It hasn’t let up since. It’s getting worse. I thought it would pass. But it feels like my whole body’s shutting down.”
I straightened in my chair. My tone shifted—firm.
“Stand up.”
“Now?” the man asked, puzzled.
“Yes. Now … are you standing?”
“…I am standing. Bloody hell.”
“Good. Hold your breath for thirty seconds—and while you’re at it, do at least five proper frog jumps.”
“Wait… a frog … what’s a frog jump?”
“Squat down like a frog, like you’re about to sit. Then leap up into the air as high as you can, arms reaching for the ceiling.”
“Now?”
“Yes… now!”
Silence. I strained to hear what was happening on the other end—but got nothing. Still, I pictured a man in his forties, standing by a gate at some Swedish airport, probably in a suit and tie, holding his breath while launching into frog jumps like his life depended on it.
Eventually, he came back—this time clearly out of breath. But now his breathing carried a different urgency, like someone recovering after a tough gym set or a punishing hill sprint.
“What now? What should I do?”
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Better,” he replied. “Much better, actually.” It was as if he hadn’t really noticed until I asked—like the question itself made him realize he was okay again.
“Then keep going. Five more.”
“Frog jumps?”
“Yes, frog jumps. And while you’re at it, hold your breath for another thirty seconds.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes passed. Then the voice returned, this time steadier.
“Why has no one ever told me this before? That I could stop it like this? I’ve dealt with numbness and anxiety since my twenties—and now it feels like my whole body is coming back online. Just like that! It’s gone. The prickling is gone. Why hasn’t anyone explained this to me?”
“That’s a great question,” I said. “Maybe one worth answering in a blog post?”
“Yes! Write about it. You have to!”
In the next moment, I heard him switch to another language—speaking to the gate agent—before returning briefly: “See you Tuesday. And hey—thank you.”
“See you Tuesday,” I replied, then tapped the red icon in the bottom corner to end the call.
Stillness. Silence—as if a portal to another world had just closed.
I didn’t know it then, but about eight hours later, an email would land in my inbox. No subject. No text. Just a photo of a vivid green Rhacophorus nigropalmatus—Wallace’s flying frog.
I opened my laptop, logged into the record system, and selected “phone call” from the dropdown menu before documenting what had just happened. Meanwhile, the first morning light crept through the blinds, painting tiger stripes across the desk and bringing the dust to life—suspended grains dancing in the air. I should clean. Vacuum. Dust. Everything at once.
After a while, I brushed the thought aside and returned to the conversation I just had: Maybe I was right. Maybe he was right. Maybe it really was worth writing about panic.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those exact words:
“Why has no one ever told me this before?”
I’d heard it in different shapes—when someone finally understood their breathing, when a racing heart stopped feeling like a death sentence, when night panic made sense, or when the need to gasp for air no longer felt mysterious. But no matter the symptom, the sentence was always the same:
“Why has no one told me?”
Panic attacks, panic disorder, and agoraphobia often feel like unsolvable riddles—at least to the person living through them. Especially the first time. Something erupts inside you, sudden and uninvited, as if your body has turned against you. There’s no warning, no clear cause—just the overwhelming sense that you’re no longer in charge. And it’s in that moment—the moment of losing control—that fear slips in. That’s when panic takes hold.
We don’t know what’s happening.
We don’t understand why.
And worst of all—we can’t stop it.
I know this. I’ve been there. First hand.
That same morning, I sat down and wrote—first one blog post, then another. I wrote about the body’s inner machinery: pumps and filters, springs and batteries. About the black box inside the brain—what stirs inside it when fear kicks in. And how our perception bends and breaks under pressure. But no matter how I phrased it, the text felt small. Inadequate. Like a feeble attempt to explain something incredibly important—and deeply complex—and a few thousand words just weren’t enough to carry it. The simple truth is, a few thousand words can’t do the subject justice.
And that’s where The Gold Standard – A New Beginning was born—from that exact realization. I needed to go bigger, bolder, and deeper. I had to rethink everything.
Suddenly it hit me: if I truly wanted to communicate what I had to say, I needed to build a full-scale program—a comprehensive educational resource. A program that licensed psychologists and medical doctors may find useful as a complement to their existing treatment plans—particularly as a structured tool for psychoeducation or general education. Not just the frog jumps, but all of it. Every part of it. But it also had to stand on its own, designed for self-guided use by individuals seeking a deeper understanding of their symptoms—or for those with limited or no access to formal treatment.
Sadly, panic attacks are still surrounded by persistent myths, recycled endlessly—especially on social media. But that’s not all. Panic is often explained using crude simplifications that end up doing more harm than good. Every time I hear someone explain the mechanisms behind a panic attack as nothing more than a “fight or flight response,” equate it with a generic stress reaction, or claim it’s caused by “alkaline blood,” I think of that Friends episode—The One in Barbados: Part 1—where Monica tries to explain how airplanes fly: “It has something to do with wind.” She’s not entirely wrong—but she completely misses the actual mechanism. She lacks understanding. And that’s precisely the point when it comes to panic attacks: understanding is absolutely paramount.
At first glance, this might seem like nitpicking. But it’s not. It’s the opposite. For many patients with panic disorder, truly grasping what a panic attack is—step by step, mechanism by mechanism—can be the turning point. And they need that clarity without the fog of generic words like stress, anxiety, “fight or flight,” or tired metaphors that offer no real help. Those explanations don’t de-dramatize the experience. And that’s exactly what patients need: To understand. To see that panic follows a process. A process that can be understood—and survived.
Many are even taught to use deep, slow breaths (square breathing) to stop a panic attack. But that often backfires—making symptoms worse over time and feeding fear instead of calming it.
In other words, there’s a whole delta of stubborn myths and harmful shortcuts we need to dismantle.
So on Christmas Day, 2020—just months before the great pandemic of our time—I decided to build something complete. A program focused solely on panic attacks, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. These conditions deserve their own space—not buried within broader themes of stress or general anxiety. They need something focused. Precise. A sniper rifle—not a shotgun.
My vision from day one was to create something immersive, educational, and even entertaining. I wanted to tell real stories. I wanted to open the doors to the therapy room, to let people witness what real change looks like—from the inside out. I wanted to share real therapy, to show how science evolved over fifty years, and how interventions gradually came together to form what we now call modern CBT—The Gold Standard.
And nearly four and a half years later, that vision became a film—finally released on June 22, 2025.
Throughout, I’ve tried to stay pragmatic—anchored in what works, and what I believe in. Hence, the program is built entirely on The Gold Standard—a solid base of peer-reviewed research, randomized controlled trials and evidence-based practice used across the globe. But I’ve also stayed grounded in clinical reality—where participants aren’t excluded, where comorbidity is the rule rather than the exception, and where people aren’t reduced to data points. I’ve held interviews, had discussions, and tried to describe the kinds of skills that quietly grow inside a clinician’s mind—skills often overlooked in textbooks and research.
So no, I haven’t created something “new.”
I’ve built on decades of work—and on my own experience. In many ways, this program reminds me of the Half-Blood Prince’s annotated copy of Advanced Potion-Making. During his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry didn’t stumble upon some groundbreaking new textbook—he found an old one, filled with handwritten notes, steeped in wisdom. It showed him a better way through the same material. A version refined by someone who had walked the path before him, who had seen where others struggled, and left behind guidance. And that’s exactly how I want you to feel as you move through this program.
Note: The intervention I used at the airport worked only because several key conditions were already in place. We had established a strong therapeutic alliance—built on trust and a shared clinical hypothesis. Equally important, the patient had already completed a thorough medical evaluation. Psychological work can only begin—safely and responsibly—once physical causes have been ruled out. It’s also important to emphasize that this type of intervention isn’t suitable for everyone. Intervening in real-life situations—especially during moments of acute distress—requires both clinical knowledge and a well-established relationship with the patient. This is not a strategy that should be attempted independently or without professional guidance. Gender, location, age, or other identifying details may have been altered, and consent has been obtained.
