Agoraphobia

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Agoraphobia
Classifications and external resources
ICD-10 F40.00 Without panic disorder, F40.01 With panic disorder
ICD-9 300.22 Without panic disorder, 300.21 With panic disorder

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.

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[edit] Misconceptions

The word agoraphobia is an English adoption of the Greek words agora (αγορά) and phobos (φόβος), literally translated as "a fear of the marketplace". This translation is the reason for the common misconception that agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces. This is not exactly the case, since agoraphobics are not afraid of open spaces themselves, but of having panic attacks as a result of being in certain locations.

Another misconception is that agoraphobia is a fear of "crowded spaces". Once again, an agoraphobic does not fear people: he or she rather fears an embarrassing/dangerous situation with no escape. Some people with agoraphobia are comfortable seeing visitors, but only in a defined space they feel in control of. Such people may live for years without leaving their homes, while happily seeing visitors and working, as long as they can stay within their safety zones.

[edit] Prevalence

The one-year prevalence of agoraphobia is about 5 percent. Agoraphobia occurs about twice as commonly among women than men (Magee et al., 1996 [1]). The gender difference may be attributable to social/cultural factors that encourage, or permit, the greater expression of avoidant coping strategies by women (DSM-IV), although other explanations are possible.

[edit] Diagnosis

Most people who present to mental health specialists develop agoraphobia after the onset of panic disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1998). Agoraphobia is best understood as an adverse behavioral outcome of repeated panic attacks and the subsequent worry, preoccupation, and avoidance. [2] Thus, the formal diagnosis of panic disorder with agoraphobia was established. However, for those people in communities or clinical settings who do not meet full criteria for panic disorder, the formal diagnosis of Agoraphobia Without History of Panic Disorder is used (DSM-IV).

[edit] Treatments

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.

Treatment options for agoraphobia and panic disorder are similar.

[edit] Alternate academic theories

[edit] Attachment theory and agoraphobia

GA FAVA, C RAFANELLI, S GRANDI, S CONTI, C RUINI (2001), Long-term outcome of panic disorder with agoraphobia treated by exposure. Psychological Medicine. Vol. 31, pp 891-898 Cambridge: University Press. Conclusions The findings suggest that exposure treatment can provide lasting relief to the majority of patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia. Disappearance of residual and subclinical agoraphobic avoidance, and not simply of panic attacks, should be the aim of exposure therapy.

Some scholars (e.g., Liotti 1996 [3], Bowlby 1998 [4]) have explained agoraphobia as an attachment deficit, i.e., the temporary loss of the ability to tolerate spatial separations from a secure base.

[edit] Spatial theory and agoraphobia

In the social sciences there is a perceived clinical bias (e.g., Davidson 2003 [5]) in agoraphobia research. Branches of the social sciences, especially geography, have increasingly become interested in what may be thought of as a spatial phenomenon.

[edit] Agoraphobics

See also Category:Agoraphobic celebrities

Real

Fictional

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Magee, W. J., Eaton, W. W., Wittchen, H. U., McGonagle, K. A., & Kessler, R. C. (1996). Agoraphobia, simple phobia, and social phobia in the National Comorbidity Survey, Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 159–168.
  2. ^ Barlow, D. H. (1988). Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic. Guilford Press.
  3. ^ G. Liotti, (1996). Insecure attachment and agoraphobia, in: C. Murray-Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde, & P. Marris (Eds.). Attachment Across the Life Cycle.
  4. ^ J. Bowlby, (1998). Attachment and Loss (Vol. 2: Separation).
  5. ^ J. Davidson, (2003). Phobic Geographies

[edit] Sources

Yahoo Health

[edit] Footnotes

Materials for this topic are obtained from the public domain source:

[edit] External links

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