Answers to 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

Can I Really Recover from Agoaphobia with Only a Self-Help Program?

Yes. I did it, and so have many others.

Now here are 3 good reasons that you can be 100% confident that you can successfully treat agoraphobia with only a self-help program:

Reason 1: Recovery from agoraphobia is mostly a matter of learning.

Agoraphobia is not a mental illness and does not require medication to correct. And unless it develops from post-traumatic stress or another
psychological condition, most cases of agoraphobia do not require long drawn out therapy.

Agoraphobia is just a phobia - and phobias are learned. You learn to associate fear with a place or situation. Then you learn to fear the panic
reaction you feel as a result.

To recover from agoraphobia, or any other phobia for that matter, you must simply do some relearning. By repeatedly exposing yourself to
your fear, you must learn:

1) That the place or situation you fear is not really dangerous.

2) That the panic symptoms you feel are not dangerous either. That these feelings will not get worse until you pass out or die - but will
eventually go away and you will be okay.

There are some skills you can practice to help speed this learning process (like relaxation and thought replacement), but ultimately, when you learn these two things you are free from agoraphobia.

A psychologist can certainly teach you these things, but you can also teach yourself using the right self-help program (and spend a lot less
money).

Reason 2: Not all psychologists use the best methods for agoraphobia anyway.

When I had agoraphobia, I learned the expensive lesson ($100 at a time) that not all psychologists are trained to treat agoraphobia properly. Similar to medical doctors, psychologists may try
different approaches depending upon what they've been taught i their own schooling.

Because I chose blindly, I had the misfortune of choosing a psychologist who thought Freudian psychoanalysis would help everyone overcome
everything. Since I was completely in the dark about agoraphobia and its treatment, I didn't know any better. My therapy sessions were like the
blind leading the blind.

Long story short, I ended up lying on a couch talking endlessly about my childhood. The psychologist kept probing for the unconscious roots of my fear. We had deep conversations about my sadness over selling a family dog, but talk of my childhood didn't help anything. My condition only grew worse.

My therapy ended when I could no longer lie on the couch without having a panic attack. That's when I realized:

I didn't need long, drawn-out psychotherapy!

I needed strategies to stop panic attacks! (Which I learned with a self-help program, by the way).

Reason 3: Your success in recovery depends on the work YOU do - with or without professional help.

When I had agoraphobia, I also learned that my recovery depended on me and the amount of work I put in, not the work of a psychologist. I learned that proven, research-based techniques for overcoming agoraphobia exist, but no one could practice them for me. A psychologist
could only guide me - but I had to do the work.

If you have agoraphobia, please don't wait for someone else to fix you. Not even a psychologist who is trained to treat agoraphobia.

Even if you seek professional help, it's wise to educate yourself about agoraphobia and its treatment beforehand, so you can make the
important decisions about your own recovery. I learned the hard way not to blindly put my future into another's hands.

My real recovery from agoraphobia began when I stopped looking all around me for the answer and looked inside myself. I made the decision to stop expecting someone or something to fix me and took
responsibility for my own recovery. The day I made this decision I was on the road to freedom from agoraphobia.

Ultimately, your recovery from agoraphobia depends on applying the right information faithfully over time. You can recover from agoraphobia by following proven techniques on consistent basis. Whether you learn
from a psychologist or a self-help program, applying the information is something you must do for yourself.

No matter how helpless or hopeless you may feel, please take it from someone who has been there:

The answer to agoraphobia is inside of you. Recovery from agoraphobia is a decision. You have the power to do what it takes to get your life
back.

Click here for more information on choosing the right self-help prorgram for you.