People in North Kirklees suffering from anxiety and panic attacks are to be offered aromatherapy, hynotherapy and reflexology to help control the symptoms.

The Batley-based Anxiety and Panic Attack Support Group, which was set up last year, has applied to Kirklees Council for £2,500 to run a 12-month pilot project to provide alternative therapy for its members.

Today the Council's health policy sub-committee was being asked to approve the grant. Part of the money would be used to offer subsidised therapy sessions on a one-to-one basis.

The group also plans to have monthly taster sessions where, for example, an aromatherapist would go along and members would take it in turns to try out the treatment.

And £500 would be used to commission an independent researcher at Huddersfield University to assess the pilot to help with funding bids for similar projects in the future.

Sharon Hudson, the group's chairman, said: "The members feel complementary therapies can help them cope better with their condition.

"We've had speakers at our meetings talking about alternative medicine and some members paid for a few sessions, for example with a hypnotherapist.

"However, all but one of the 12 members are unemployed because of their condition and so most cannot afford the fees for therapists.''

One of the members who hopes to benefit from the new initiative is retired police chief inspector Jim Daniel, 63, who was in the force for 34 years - ten of those in Bradford.

He said: "I had my first panic attack when I was 17 and I have suffered ever since. I was in the Royal Marines and aboard an aircraft carrier coming back from Gibraltar. I suddenly felt hot, sweaty, dizzy, disorientated and I had difficulty breathing.

"Not much was known about panic attacks in those days and at first the doctor thought I had contracted a tropical disease and then put it down to over work.''

Glasgow-born Mr Daniel, of Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, said that over the years he had learnt to cope through positive thinking and deliberately confronting awkward situations.

He said: "I never let my panic attacks interfere with my work when I was a police officer but I did find socialising difficult.''

To boost his self-confidence he set up the Morley Philatelic Society in 1970, regularly gives lectures on Victorian antiques, is involved in church work and is a member of a social club.

Mr Daniel believes his condition was triggered by emotional abuse he suffered as a child, which left him self-conscious and with low self-esteem.

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