How Can We Define Agoraphobia?
Agoraphobia is categorized as an anxiety disorder. To define agoraphobia in simple words; it is the fear of open spaces. But as we said this is the simple definition.
To define agrophobia more specificly and accurately we can say that it is a condition whereby the sufferer fears being in places or situations that are outside of their familiar environment. Agoraphobia causes the sufferer to experience high anxiety or panic attacks when they attempt to carry out normal tasks which involves being away from a person or place of safety.
Therefore, the sufferer must always feel that they within a familiar and confort zone in termes of place and people.
For more insights into the experiences of a sufferer we have included this video of you in which a sufferer talks about the history of her agoraphobia and experiences with it.
There are some who would divide the sufferers of agoraphobia into two types: Agoraphobia sufferers with history of panic disorder, and those without a history of panic Dsorder. Yet it is said that most people who are Agoraphobic belong to the first type which is the ones with a history of panic disorder.
"What is Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia?
Those who have panic disorder with agoraphobia exhibit the characteristics of agoraphobia and they also have a history of panic disorder. Their fear is primarily focused on having a panic attack.
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), this disorder is diagnosed three times as often in women as in men and approximately one-third to one-half of people with panic disorder also have agoraphobia.
What is Agoraphobia without History of Panic Disorder?
Agoraphobics who do not have panic disorder are not afraid of having a panic attack per se, but are afraid of having any physical panic-type symptom, such as dizziness or diarrhea. The fear may include any embarrassing symptom, such as loss of bladder control or a fear of fainting and being left on the sidewalk, or a fear of cardiac arrest.
If there is an underlying fainting or cardiac disorder, the fear about the medical condition has to be clearly in excess of what would “normally” be associated with the person’s medical condition, in order for agoraphobia to be diagnosed.
This disorder is far more prevalent in females than in males, according to the anxiety DSM-IV."
Therefore, it seems that agrophobics’ main trigger is the fear of having a panic attack or even a single symptom of panic attack while outside of their comfort zone. So it is really anixety that causes anxiety.
Some typical places and situations that are feared include:
- Being outside or far from home
- Being home alone
- Being in a crowd
- Standing in line
- Traveling on public transportation or in cars
- Elevators
- Crowded places
- Crossing bridges
There is a school of thought that says that all anxiety related disorders lies in one place. This place is called the Amygdala. The Amygdala is a small organ in the subconscious brain.
This organ is said to be responsible for many emotional decisions including the anxiety response. During anxiety disorders, this anxious ’switch’ becomes stuck in the "ON" position causing the sufferer to experience inappropriate high levels of anxiety which may lead to phobias developing.
There is a program that bases its anxiety recovery strategy on solving the problem from that source. You can check out this program which is called The Linden Method.
We hope that you find this post useful. We will continually introduce material for you to better understand what is Anxiety. We will continue our research and bring you more information to cover as many aspects as possible of anxiety. Meanwhile you can check the list of materials and tools that we gathered for you to tackle and solve anxiety for yourself and others at:
1- BusinessFountains Store: This is the main area of Anxiety Material that we are collecting.
2- Anxiety Self Help Library: This section mainly includes anxiety related audio books and other audio materials. Audio books are very useful when you don’t have time to read a book. For more audio book listings and categories you can go to our Audio Book Store.
3- What is Anxiety full article list
4- Anxiety Centre: We have decided to create this section since we are creating more and more channels that we want to give you access to which include anxiety information and solution programs. This area includes most of the above items and more. From now on Anxiety Centre will be the place that will include the items that we will ad for you whether it is a totally new channel or an item within a channel.
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May 26th, 2009 at 3:22 am
[...] to take so that we don’t hinder our recovery with contradicting approaches.Read more on how to define Agoraphobia and check the multiple channels we have created for you for more anxiety information and solutions [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 3:41 am
[...] take so that we don’t hinder our recovery with contradicting approaches. Read more on how to define Agoraphobia and check the multiple channels we have created for you for more anxiety information and solutions [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 3:43 am
[...] take so that we don’t hinder our recovery with contradicting approaches. Read more on how to define Agoraphobia and check the multiple channels we have created for you for more anxiety information and solutions [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 3:44 am
[...] take so that we don’t hinder our recovery with contradicting approaches. Read more on how to define Agoraphobia and check the multiple channels we have created for you for more anxiety information and solutions [...]