The book definition of agoraphobia is fear of the marketplace.
However, in actuality, agoraphobia is a condition that renders people incapable of leaving their homes.
When someone is in this state, it would be considered full-blown agoraphobia.
There are cases where an agoraphobia patient simply avoids some places.
The fact of the matter is when agoraphobia is in its developmental stages those suffering from it start from being afraid to venture out to one place in particular.
Then they become afraid to go to another.
Step by step they become afraid to go to more and more places until one day they find themselves locked inside their homes.
In many cases, hermits are people suffering from agoraphobia.
There are Two Parts to Agoraphobia Agoraphobia is a compound nervous illness.
Its driving force is panic attack syndrome.
You could think of agoraphobia as the end game of all the symptoms of panic attacks.
In fact, without panic, fear of leaving the home, or going to the market would not exist.
This true because it is panic attacks, a person suffering from agoraphobia is trying to avoid when he becomes motivated to lock himself in his home.
When you study it, you can easily see panic disorder is inexorably tied to agoraphobia.
Once you stop the panic attacks, you cut off the fuel agoraphobia needs in order to be effective.
So, the key to ending agoraphobia is to stop these attacks from occurring.
A Frightening and Bewildering Attack In the early stages of an anxiety disorder, a panic will occur and it will seem to come out of nowhere.
As well as being freighting, panic attacks are bewildering.
The sufferer will associate the place where he suffered the panic with the panic itself and therefore he will avoid returning to this place.
Unfortunately, a sufferer of anxiety is liable to have a panic attack anywhere and so, if the attack was anything other than just a rare isolated incident, the patient will have another one in a another place and he will then add this place do those he will no longer visit.
The Want to Stay Away from Places and Events In reality, it is not always places the panic attack sufferer associates with his attacks.
It sometimes is certain events he will blame them on.
Certain church ceremonies, such as weddings may be associated with panic.
Also, sometimes it is parties, traffic jams, concerts or any other type of an event.
It doesn't really matter if it is a place or an event the person suffering panic attacks is trying to avoid because in his mind the solution is the same; stay home.
The symptoms of panic attacks are very harrowing to the person having them.
These symptoms are feelings that mock very serious events like heart attacks and strokes.
To the person feeling these fake heart attacks and strokes, they are very real.
It is only normal to try to stave off such feelings.
Certainly, if avoiding parties or weddings would do it, it would seem reasonable to stay away from these things altogether! The bottom line is curing agoraphobia entails the assisting the sufferer in visiting those places where he has had panic attacks.
The cure to panic attacks entails the inviting them into his life and not trying to avoid them in any way shape or form.
Panic thrives on fear and when we decide we will not fear them, they will cease to exist.
Then, with panic no longer present in one's life, agoraphobia will gently fade away.