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Does agoraphobia have more to do with fear or anxiety?
Before answering this
question it is important to understand the difference
between fear and anxiety.
According to the American
Psychiatric Association, anxiety is an unpleasant,
overriding mental tension that has no apparent or
identifiable cause. On the other hand, fear causes
mental tension due to a specific, external reason.
In other words, anxiety
is what you feel when you are worried about the possibility
of something unpleasant happening in the future that may or
may not happen. Anxiety is often irrational.
Fear has a specific,
tangible object. As in the case of a phobia, you are afraid
of something specific like snakes or spiders.
Agoraphobia has to do
with both anxiety and fear. If you have agoraphobia, you
have irrational, free-floating worry about the possibility
of something dreadful (but unlikely) happening in the
future. If you have agoraphobia, you are equally likely to
be afraid of something tangible and specific, like going
outside, away from your safe zone, or into public places.
You fear having a panic attack, or worse, in an embarrassing
situation.
Because agoraphobia
involves both anxiety and fear, it is both an anxiety
disorder and a phobia - and more complex to treat than other
disorders that fall neatly into one category or the other.
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