Do certain situations make me panic or do I panic in certain situations? How can I "cut" this loop of discomfort and stop it from interfering in my life?
Agoraphobia consists of experiencing anxiety in situations where it may be difficult to escape or ask for help and to be attended to in an emergency. Some situations could be:
Travel by means of transport (car, bus, subway, train, boat, plane).
Being in open spaces (markets, parking, squares).
Being in closed places (shops, theater, cinema, elevator).
Standing in line or being in the middle of a crowd (concerts, festivals, conferences).
Being away from home alone.
What relationship exists between physical and emotional discomfort?
Panic attack and agoraphobia are related, let's say that agoraphobia could be a "complication" of the panic attack as it is associated with a specific situation. It is a circular process, which feeds back:
Physical sensations appear: palpitations, feeling of suffocation, etc.
Interpretation of threat: "something is happening to me", "I'm going to get dizzy."
Emotion: fear, alertness, hyperfocus on physiological processes of the body (swallowing, breathing).
Catastrophic interpretation of sensations: "I'm going to lose control", "I'm going to faint", "I'm not going to get to the hospital in time".
Panic and intensification of the physical sensations from point 1.
Finally, you end up developing a fear that this will happen again, and since you don't know when it will appear, you prefer to avoid situations in which escaping or asking for help is difficult.
So... what is the psychological treatment for agoraphobia?
In therapy, exposures to bodily sensations (interoceptive exposure) are made with the aim of normalizing certain physiological processes in your body without interpreting them as threat or danger (for example, if I start running because I miss the bus, it is normal for my heart rate to and sweating increases). In this way, we will avoid making catastrophic interpretations of bodily sensations, breaking the feedback loop. In addition, we will delve into your meanings about bodily sensations and the fact of being or feeling alone in certain situations, what past experiences you have had or specific events that may have influenced the present.
What can I expect from psychological therapy?
The impairment caused by agoraphobia usually affects several important areas of life. Therefore, through focused treatment, you will increase your level of functionality, autonomy and productivity, you will decrease self-medication as a coping strategy and associated symptoms (other clinical symptoms of anxiety, depression, substance abuse).
If you have experienced these symptoms (or live with them) I encourage you to meet in session to assess your case and work together on your emotional well-being.
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