Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder which primarily consists of the fear of experiencing a difficult or embarrassing situation from which the sufferer cannot escape.

Agoraphobics may experience severe panic attacks in situations where they feel trapped, insecure, out of control, or too far from their personal comfort zone. In severe cases, an agoraphobic may be confined not only to their home, but to one or two rooms, and they may even become bed-bound, or a recluse.

Agoraphobics are often extremely sensitized to their own bodily sensations, subconsciously over-reacting to perfectly normal events. For example, the exertion involved in climbing a flight of stairs may trigger a full-blown panic attack, because it increases the heartbeat and breathing rate, which the agoraphobic interprets as the start of a panic attack instead of a normal fluctuation.

Agoraphobia can be successfully treated in many cases through a very gradual process of graduated exposure therapy combined with cognitive therapy and sometimes anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications. Anti-anxiety medications include benzodiazepines such as alprazolam. Anti-depressant medications which are used to treat anxiety disorders are mainly in the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) class such as sertraline, paroxetine and fluoxetine. Alternative ways of treatment include hypnosis and techniques of Neuro-linguistic programming, which is rapidly becoming more popular and widely accepted by the general public.

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Related Links:

• US National Library of Medicine

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