Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia | |
---|---|
Treatment | Cognitive behavioral therapy[3] |
Prognosis | Resolution in half with treatment[4] |
Frequency | 1.9% of adults[1] |
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is believed to be due to a combination of
Etymology
The term agoraphobia was coined in German in 1871 by pioneering German psychologist Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833–1890), in his article "Die Agoraphobie, eine neuropathische Erscheinung." Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, Berlin, 1871–72; 3: 138–161. It is derived from Greek ἀγορά (agorā́), meaning 'place of assembly' or 'market-place' and -φοβία (-phobía), meaning 'fear'.[9][10]
Signs and symptoms
Agoraphobia is a condition where individuals become anxious in unfamiliar environments or where they perceive that they have little control. Triggers for this anxiety may include wide-open spaces, crowds (social anxiety), or traveling (even short distances). Agoraphobia is often, but not always, compounded by a fear of social embarrassment, as a person experiencing agoraphobia fears the onset of a panic attack and appearing distraught in public. Most of the time they avoid these areas and stay in the comfort of a known, controllable space, usually their home.[1]
Agoraphobia is also defined as "a fear, sometimes terrifying, by those who have experienced one or more panic attacks".[11] In these cases, the patient is fearful of a particular place because they have previously experienced a panic attack at the same location. Fearing the onset of another panic attack, the patient is fearful or avoids a location. Some refuse to leave their homes in medical emergencies because the fear of being outside of their comfort areas is too great.[12]
The person with this condition can sometimes go to great lengths to avoid the locations where they have experienced the onset of a panic attack. Agoraphobia, as described in this manner, is a symptom professionals check when making a diagnosis of panic disorder. Other syndromes like obsessive–compulsive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder can also cause agoraphobia. Any irrational fear that keeps one from going outside can cause the syndrome.[13]
People with agoraphobia may experience temporary separation anxiety disorder when certain individuals of the household depart from the residence temporarily, such as a parent or spouse, or when they are left home alone. These situations can result in an increase in anxiety or a panic attack or feeling the need to separate themselves from family or friends.[14][15]
People with agoraphobia sometimes fear waiting outside for long periods of time; that symptom can be called "macrophobia".[16]
Panic attacks
Agoraphobia patients can experience sudden panic attacks when traveling to places where they fear they are out of control, help would be difficult to obtain, or they could be embarrassed. During a panic attack,
Causes
Agoraphobia is believed to be due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors.[1] The condition often runs in families, and stressful or traumatic events such as the death of a parent or being attacked may be a trigger.[1]
Research has uncovered a link between agoraphobia and difficulties with spatial orientation.
Substance-induced
Chronic use of
Attachment theory
Some scholars[26][27] have explained agoraphobia as an attachment deficit, i.e., the temporary loss of the ability to tolerate spatial separations from a secure base.[28] Recent empirical research has also linked attachment and spatial theories of agoraphobia.[29]
Spatial theory
In the social sciences, a perceived clinical bias[30] exists in agoraphobia research. Branches of the social sciences, especially geography, have increasingly become interested in what may be thought of as a spatial phenomenon. One such approach links the development of agoraphobia with modernity.[31] Factors considered contributing to agoraphobia within modernity are the ubiquity of cars and urbanization. These have helped develop the expansion of public space and the contraction of private space, thus creating a conflict in the mind of agoraphobic individuals.
Evolutionary psychology
An evolutionary psychology view is that the more unusual primary agoraphobia without panic attacks may be due to a different mechanism from agoraphobia with panic attacks. Primary agoraphobia without panic attacks may be a specific phobia explained by it once having been evolutionarily advantageous to avoid exposed, large, open spaces without cover or concealment. Agoraphobia with panic attacks may be an avoidance response secondary to the panic attacks, due to fear of the situations in which the panic attacks occurred.[32][33]
Diagnosis
Most people who present to mental health specialists develop agoraphobia after the onset of panic disorder.[34] Agoraphobia is best understood as an adverse behavioral outcome of repeated panic attacks and subsequent anxiety and preoccupation with these attacks that leads to an avoidance of situations where a panic attack could occur.[35] Early treatment of panic disorder can often prevent agoraphobia.[36] Agoraphobia is typically determined when symptoms are worse than panic disorder, but also do not meet the criteria for other anxiety disorders such as depression.[37]
Agoraphobia without history of panic disorder
Agoraphobia without a history of panic disorder (also called primary agoraphobia) is an
According to the
Treatments
Therapy
Systematic desensitization can provide lasting relief to the majority of patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia. The disappearance of residual and sub-clinical agoraphobic avoidance, and not simply of panic attacks, should be the aim of exposure therapy.[41] Many patients can deal with exposure easier if they are in the company of a friend on whom they can rely.[42][43] In this approach, it is suggested that people being treated remain in the situation that provokes anxiety until the symptoms anxiety have subsided because if they leave the situation, the phobic response will not decrease and it may even rise.[43]
A related exposure treatment is in vivo exposure, a cognitive behavioral therapy method, that gradually exposes patients to the feared situations or objects.[44] This treatment was largely effective with an effect size from d = 0.78 to d = 1.34, and these effects were shown to increase over time, proving that the treatment had long-term efficacy (up to 12 months after treatment).[44]
Psychological interventions in combination with pharmaceutical treatments were overall more effective than treatments simply involving either CBT or pharmaceuticals.[44] Further research showed there was no significant effect between using group CBT versus individual CBT.[44]
Cognitive restructuring has also proved useful in treating agoraphobia.[citation needed] This treatment involves coaching a participant through a dianoetic discussion, with the intent of replacing irrational, counterproductive beliefs with more factual and beneficial ones.
Relaxation techniques are often useful skills for the agoraphobic to develop, as they can be used to stop or prevent symptoms of anxiety and panic.[45]
Videoconferencing psychotherapy (VCP) is an emerging modality used to treat various disorders in a remote method.[46] Similar to traditional face-to-face interventions, VCP can be used to administer CBT.[47]
Virtual reality computer stimulated therapy has been suggested to help people with psychosis and agoraphobia manage their avoidance of outside environments. In the therapy, the user wears a headset and a virtual character provides psychological advice and guides them as they explore simulated environments (such as a cafe or a busy street).[48]
Medications
Antidepressant medications most commonly used to treat anxiety disorders are mainly
Benzodiazepines and other anxiolytic medications such as alprazolam and clonazepam are used to treat anxiety and can also help control the symptoms of a panic attack.[citation needed]
Alternative medicine
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) has been studied as a possible treatment for agoraphobia, with poor results.[50] As such, EMDR is only recommended in cases where cognitive-behavioral approaches have proven ineffective or in cases where agoraphobia has developed following trauma.[51]
Many people with anxiety disorders benefit from joining a self-help or support group (telephone conference-call support groups or online support groups being of particular help for completely housebound individuals). Sharing problems and achievements with others, as well as sharing various self-help tools, are common activities in these groups. In particular, stress management techniques and various kinds of meditation practices and visualization techniques can help people with anxiety disorders calm themselves and may enhance the effects of therapy, as can service to others, which can distract from the self-absorption that tends to go with anxiety problems. Also, preliminary evidence suggests aerobic exercise may have a calming effect. Since caffeine, certain illicit drugs, and even some over-the-counter cold medications can aggravate the symptoms of anxiety disorders, they should be avoided.[52]
Epidemiology
Agoraphobia occurs about twice as commonly among women as it does in men. It can develop at any age but is much more common in adolescence and early adulthood and occurs more often in people of above average intelligence.[53]
Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia affects roughly 5.1% of Americans,[44] and about 1/3 of this population with panic disorder have co-morbid agoraphobia. It is uncommon to have agoraphobia without panic attacks, with only 0.17% of people with agoraphobia not presenting panic disorders as well.[44]
Society and culture
Notable cases
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (January 2024) |
- Woody Allen (b. 1935), American actor, director, musician[54]
- Kim Basinger (b. 1953), American actress[55]
- Earl Campbell (b. 1955), American pro football player[56]
- Macaulay Culkin (b. 1980), American actor, known for his portrayal of Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, said he had "self-diagnosed" agoraphobia.[57]
- Paula Deen (b. 1947), American chef, author, and television personality[58]
- H.L. Gold (1914–1996), science fiction editor – as a result of trauma during his wartime experiences, his agoraphobia became so severe that for more than two decades he was unable to leave his apartment. Towards the end of his life, he acquired some control over the condition.[59]
- Daryl Hannah (b. 1960), American actress[60]
- Miranda Hart (b. 1972), actress and comedian, suffered from agoraphobia in her twenties[61]
- philanthropist[62]
- Olivia Hussey (b. 1951), Anglo-Argentine actress[63][64]
- Shirley Jackson (1916–1965), American writer – her agoraphobia is considered to be a primary inspiration for the novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle.[65][66]
- Elfriede Jelinek (b. 1946), Austrian writer, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature in 2004[67]
- Mike Patton (b. 1968), American musician.[68]
- Bolesław Prus (1847–1912), Polish journalist and novelist[69]
- Peter Robinson (b. 1962), British musician known as Marilyn[70]
- Barbra Streisand, her stage fright became so severe after forgetting the words to a song during a 1967 performance in Central Park that it manifested into agoraphobia[71]
- Brian Wilson (b. 1942), American singer and songwriter, primary songwriter of The Beach Boys, a former recluse and agoraphobic who has schizophrenia[72]
- Ben Weasel, singer and songwriter[73]
See also
References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Further reading
- Agoraphobia Without a History or Panic Disorder May Be Part of the Panic Disorder Syndrome. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 190(9):624–630, September 2002.
- The Relationship of Agoraphobia and Panic in a Community Sample of Adolescents and Young Adults.
External links
- Agoraphobia at Curlie
- Anxiety Disorders Association of America Information for families, clinicians & researchers
- Anxiety Disorders Association of Canada Registered Canadian non-profit organization, promotes prevention, treatment & management of anxiety disorders
- ANXIETY UK (Formerly the National Phobics Society) Nationally registered charity in the UK; provides information, support & understanding
- The Phobic Trust (Of New Zealand) Registered charitable trust in New Zealand; provides information about treatment, education & support to people with anxiety disorders
- South African Depression and Anxiety group (National Charity) Counseling, mental health awareness programs: media & public speaking outreach & rural outreach initiatives
- Agoraphobia at Curlie
- Self help guide (NHS Direct)