Causes and Development of Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia Causes Part - 1: The Agoraphobic Family
Agoraphobia is more likely to develop if certain factors in a person’s family environment combine with other risk factors. Here are ten family factors that contribute to the development of agoraphobia:
1. Parent who models anxiety or fear
Parent role modeling has a powerful influence on children. If one or both parents model anxious or fearful behavior, the child is likely to develop it also.
2. Critical parent
Children with overly critical parents who place unrealistic expectations on them are more likely to become perfectionists by internalizing (or taking on as their own) their parents’ expectations. Many adults with agoraphobia, whether they know it or not, are still anxiously striving to meet the expectations their parents set for them during childhood.
3. Overprotective parent
Overprotective parents unknowingly instill fear in their children by acting as if the world is a scary and dangerous place. By shielding their children from life's hardships, they teach them to view themselves as fragile and unequipped to face challenges independently. They send their children the message that taking risks in life is too dangerous and should be avoided. Because of this, children of overprotective parents are more likely to approach life’s challenges with fear and anxiety.
4. Parents who give performance-based approval
Parents who only show approval when their does something that pleases them does not communicate a clear distinction between the child’s accomplishments and the child's worth as a person. Children of such parents may also grow up failing to make this critical distinction. They may feel they must always live up to others’ expectations to be a valuable person. This produces anxiety that comes from feeling the constant need to achieve something to maintain a sense of self-worth.
Some parents do their children an even greater disservice by holding standards of perfection. Not only do their children learn they must perform to be loved, they learn they must perform perfectly. Children who feel like their self-worth depends on being perfect will feel high levels of performance anxiety. They may also fear of losing the love and approval of significant others if they are not perfect.
5. Rigid family rules
Children who grow up in families with overly strict rules tend to become black-and-white thinkers, which makes agoraphobia more likely. As adults, they may end up creating their own set of rigid rules about the way things "should" be and experience undue anxiety when these standards are not met.
6. Rigid belief systems
Children who grow up in families that hold rigid belief systems also tend to become black-and-white thinkers because parents with rigid beliefs usually model this type of thinking.
7. Suppression of feelings
Children from families in which express feelings is not okay (like being told not to cry or not to feel a certain way) learn to hold in their feelings as adults. Parents may teach a child that it is not okay to express feelings in any of the following ways: 1) by telling the child directly not to feel a certain way, 2) by ignoring the child's feelings, or 3) by reacting with violence or anger when the child expresses feelings. Children with parents who practice these things may become adults with pent up emotions, putting them at risk for anxiety and panic.
8. Alcoholism, physical abuse, or emotional abuse
Children from homes with alcoholism or abuse may develop anxiety and fear that comes from having an unstable emotional environment. They are more likely to be emotionally unstable as adults and are more prone to developing agoraphobia.
9. Separation from parents
Children who are separated from their parents for long periods of time without knowing why may develop anxiety over separation and loss. This may happen if a parent is sick or in the hospital for a long time, goes on long business trips, ignores the child for long periods, gets divorced, or dies. Anxiety over separation and loss may contribute to needing to be close to safe people to feel secure, which is a symptom of agoraphobia.
10. Having to play the parent role too early
Children who are forced into the parent role with younger siblings at an early age because of a parent being sick, busy, or absent may develop a rigid set of rules for themselves in order to survive. This is a coping mechanism for having adult responsibilities before they are developmentally prepared to handle them. In adulthood, this can lead to thought patterns that contribute to agoraphobia such as black-and-white thinking, a high need for control, perfectionism, and unrealistic expectations.