Panic disorder with agoraphobia is more common than you would perhaps expect, affecting around 20% of the world population within their lifetimes.
But what is Agoraphobia and what causes it? Agoraphobia is traditionally described as ‘the fear of open spaces’ but any sufferer will tell you that this definition is flawed. Agoraphobia sufferers experience intrusive, safety seeking behaviors which restrict their geographic movements, often making them, seemingly, housebound. But why do they suddenly become so scared to move around freely, when previously they were able to do anything and go anywhere?
Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia are both anxiety symptoms, not stand alone conditions. Why? Because neither condition can exist without underlying high anxiety caused by a shift in the way the anxiety control centre in the brain manages the anxiety response.
The anxiety response can be adapted to be appropriate to a person’s environment; it has to be, as we move from safe to unsafe environments, our bodies have to prepare themselves for action under threat. But in panic disorder and agoraphobia, this control centre has been disrupted (by a stress factor such as work issues, bereavement, money issues etc.) and it believes that this higher level of anxiety is appropriate, despite us KNOWING consciously that it is not, it acts on its belief and produces anxiety responses. Because this high anxiety is often experienced when away from people or places of safety, agoraphobics learn that HOME=SAFETY. When they then attempt to move out of their safety zone, they experience panic disorder and agoraphobia.
Many Agoraphobia sufferers don’t experience panic disorder and some experience high levels of anxiety, OCD or other phobias.
But, what is the solution? Any curative treatment must address the root cause of the panic disorder with agoraphobia in a structured process of re-learning in order to ‘fool’ the subconscious mind into believing it is safe again – allowing it to use its own natural process of ‘adapting to the environment’ to reset itself back down to a ‘normal’, appropriate level of anxiety.
This sounds difficult, but the speed and permanence of this process and cure are breathtaking, when you do it correctly. For years, medics, psychologists and psycho-pharmacologists have tried to create processes and drugs which address the deep-rooted behaviors in the anxiety control centre which cause panic disorder with agoraphobia with very little success, providing only superficial fixes and anxiety management techniques. But a curative solution does exist and it has been used by many thousands of sufferers of panic disorder with agoraphobia with permanent success.
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