ONLINE THERAPY FOR AGORAPHOBIA
Overcome Agoraphobia through Mindfulness Therapy Online
Agoraphobia and Social Anxiety are characterized by intense emotional reactions and panic attacks related to change of physical location. Online Mindfulness Therapy using Skype is an exciting new approach to help people imprisoned by this debilitating form of anxiety. Online Skype Therapy allows people to work on their anxiety in the comfort of their homes and gradually develop the tools that will allow them to venture out and become more confident in themselves so that they can participate and get more enjoyment from life.
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| Online Therapy for Agoraphobia and Social Anxiety Disorder |
On of my online clients, a woman in her late 30s seldom moved out of the safety zone of her home because she was convinced that something terrible would happen and there would be no one there to help her. This sense of intense isolation and fear of being alone is an ironic side to a behavioral disorder that produces just that - isolation and loneliness. Many sufferers from social anxiety have very low self-confidence and even lower self-esteem. They are imprisoned by negative beliefs about themselves in which they are unable to cope with change. Not only change of location, but change of routine or anything, which can be described as the familiar rhythm to their lives.
In terms of the emotional reactivity, those with social anxiety disorders experience what can best be described as an inner contraction of emotional energy. The anxiety contracts and concentrates into a tight focal point, usually centered on a thought or a belief. This of course is the driving emotional energy that can lead to a panic attack, which can be described as an explosion of anxiety, leading to very erratic behavior. This is what many sufferers are most afraid of - this runaway and uncontrollable behavior.
Over the years, I have been studying this contraction process and have found that mindfulness to be extremely effective as an antidote. Mindfulness, by its very nature is an expansion of consciousness and so admirably counteracts the contraction of consciousness associated with emotional reactivity. There are many ways that mindfulness can help with anxiety disorders. The first and most basic skill is simply learning to awaken to the inner reactive thinking as it arises. This simple process of recognition can and does make all the difference. In my book, The Path of Mindfulness Meditation, I describe this as one of the 3 R’s of mindfulness practice: Recognition, Relationship, Resolution. If a person can learn to recognize his habitual reactive thoughts as they arise, then a moment of choice opens up. If he remains blind, then nothing can change.
When the lady mentioned above took on mindfulness training with me, she soon learned to catch these reactive thoughts. Actually, after awhile, it became a game for her and for once in a very long time she felt that she had some control. This is one of the immediate benefits of mindfulness therapy - clients quickly shift out of being the victim to being empowered. For an agoraphobic, this is a revolution.
Instead if being dominated by negative thoughts, she began to see them as nothing more than “objects,” and in fact she imagined them as pebbles on a beach. She could see them as discreet entities and could simply walk around them, pick them up and look at them, but she no longer was compelled to become them. She began to find her true Self again - a Self that was not defined by rock hard thoughts, but was that inquisitive child that could look at these “things” and not be afraid. This is the beginning of the Resolution phase of mindfulness - a release of that contracted energy, a flowering of her true essence as the “knowing” of the contents of her mind - the “known” and the habitual reactivity and resistance to her emotions - “the knower.” Mindfulness allows us to let go of the known and the knower and awaken as the knowing - the pure consciousness of the free mind and heart.
"Mindfulness Online Therapy: The Effective, Convenient and Affordable Choice for Anxiety Disorders."
Do you feel yourself to be a victim of your anxiety? Do you feel hostage to your emotions?
Do you feel that your anxiety is ruining your life and preventing you from doing the things that you want to do?
Do you feel that anxiety is preventing you from forming close personal relationships?
Are you afraid of having a panic attack and losing control?
Mindfulness Therapy, whether in-person or online counseling via Skype, provides a particularly effective approach for healing anxiety disorders.
Online Therapist for Agoraphobia and Social Phobia
As a Mindfulness-based psychotherapist it never ceases to amaze me the extent of the problem of anxiety disorders, general anxiety (GAD) and panic attacks anxiety. At least 1 in 5 people will experience some form of panic anxiety attacks at some time in their lives, and it is particularly common in young people in their 20s-30s. In its most severe form, it leads to social anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, which can be extremely debilitating.
Today, more and more people suffering from anxiety are taking matters into their own hands and seeking help to learn self-help strategies to better cope with their anxiety and better manage the stress and distress produced by anxiety and panic attacks. To address this growing need, I developed a system of cognitive therapy called Mindfulness Meditation Therapy (MMT), based on Buddhist Psychology, NLP and Experiential Psychotherapy. What I have discovered over the years is that MMT works very well for online counseling therapy through Skype-based video call sessions. Skype Therapy or Internet Therapy is gaining tremendous popularity and is so much more convenient and less intimidating than going to a therapist’s office. Now, there is a growing number of research studies that show Online Therapy to be just as effective as traditional office therapy.
Mindfulness Therapy for Panic Attacks and Panic Anxiety
One of the most important techniques to learn for managing anxiety attacks is called Reframing. This simply means that you teach yourself to see the anxiety emotion as an object that arises within the mind. This is the opposite to identifying with the anxiety or fear and then becoming swept up with catastrophic thinking, worrying and other forms of reactive thinking that simply make things worse. Instead of, “I am afraid!” we reframe that as “I notice the emotion of fear arising in me.” This simple action stops the mind contracting into the emotion and keeps the mind free to engage with the emotion as an object, and that is something totally and absolutely different. In a sense, you leave the “I” out of it altogether – something to be discovered at a later time. The main point of Reframing is that you learn how not to be overwhelmed by a panic thought when it arises and not to feed the emotion by becoming lost in thinking and reacting. With practice you become more and more familiar with the anxiety emotion as an object, a visitor and you find that you don’t need to react to it with fear or more anxiety.
This form of retraining how we respond to our emotions develops a kind of immunity to the anxiety not unlike the immunity that the body develops to pathogens. Before immunity is established, we are at great risk from viruses and bacteria, but after we have developed an immune response, the same organisms are rendered completely harmless and incapable of causing suffering. It is the same when we develop mental immunity to our emotional pain. The panic anxiety may still arise out of habit, but we don’t react and therefore are immune to the suffering that we create when we react to emotional pain. Mindfulness is the tool that allows us to develop this mental immunity.
When the mind is free from reacting to our emotional pain then it is put in an ideal state to allow the pain itself to begin to heal and lose intensity. When you learn how to sit with your pain without becoming reactive then you are creating the right inner conditions that allow beneficial change and that allow your innate intelligence and creativity to work on healing and resolving the pain.
The next factor that works to facilitate this new relationship with our panic anxiety is the immensely powerful factor of friendliness. Now that we are getting better at holding the panic anxiety as an object within our mind that we can relate to and look at, we take this relationship to a whole new level by welcoming the emotion. We actually train our self to greet is just as we would greet an old friend. Turn to the anxiety with warmth and friendliness instead of our habitual knee-jerk reaction of hatred and resistance and everything changes. Why? Because we actually create an inner space in which that anxiety emotion can exist unmolested and unharmed. This above anything else creates the best possible conditions in which the emotion can heal itself.
Try this for yourself: Practice Reframing followed by the Response of Friendliness. You may find this difficult to do at first, but it becomes increasingly easier with practice, especially when you begin to feel the benefits as the reactivity and the core panic anxiety begin to resolve themselves.
Peter Strong, PhD, is a Mindfulness Psychotherapist, Online Therapist, Spiritual Teacher, Medical Research Scientist and Author, based in Boulder, Colorado. He was born in the UK and educated at the University of Oxford.
Email inquiries about Online Therapy and Online Counseling are most welcome. Request an Online Psychotherapy Skype session today and begin a course of Mindfulness Therapy for your Anxiety, Depression or Emotional Stress.
You can purchase a copy of Dr Strong’s book ‘The Path of Mindfulness Meditation’ at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk and Barnes&Noble.com. A Kindle edition is also available.
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