Causes of Agoraphobia – Biological & Psychological Factors

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Were you born doomed to become housebound or did you become that way? A bit of both. If you were a psychological sleuth and had to hunt down someone stowed away in his house, you would compile an MO that combined a biological predisposition to act fearfully, along with psychological factors that create a view of the world as more dangerous than your capacity to handle it.

A typical profile might look like this:

Agoraphobia Causes – Biological Factors:

• Female: As a female, it’s more socially acceptable for you to be housebound. What’s more, you feel generally less control over your life than men do. You suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and feel heightened anxiety just before menstruating—the time at which you experience the most panic attacks.
• Childhood anxiety: As far back as you can remember, you’ve felt more fearful and anxious than others have. At least one of your parents may also be fear-prone.
• Sensory defensiveness: You get easily overstimulated and irritated by certain sensory stimuli, such as bright lights, noise, unpleasant odors, certain textures on your skin and light or unexpected touch, as when someone comes up to you from behind and taps you on the shoulder. Crowds and heights make you anxious.
• Highly imaginative: You have a potent imagination that enables you to visualize your fears, increasing the likelihood that they will get out of control.
• Drug reactions: You react strongly to drugs. Caffeine and marijuana make you more nervous and prone to panic.

Causes of Agoraphobia – Psychological Factors:

• Low self-esteem: You underrate your own value and abilities. Often, you set unreasonably high goals for yourself and then worry about failing, which would embarrass you intensely.
• Emotionally constricted: You tend to hide your emotions, especially fear, distress and anger.
• Strong fear of abandonment: You fear that people will leave you and find it hard to be alone. As a child, you were clingy and afraid to be separated from your mother. You may have refused to go to school at some point.
• Loss of a loved one: Preceding your first panic attack, you lost someone very close to you—through death, breakup of a relationship, or relocation.
• False independence: You see yourself as independent, but inside feel intense dependency, which you try to conceal. Were you to express this dependency, you worry no one would comfort you. Agoraphobic symptoms may serve the purpose of safely receiving needed care-giving without directly expressing the wish for intimacy. For instance, if you panic while at the supermarket, a sympathetic friend might hold your hand until you calm down. In this way, you get needed nurturing without revealing your longing for someone to love and take care of you.
• Stress: Stress has been an unwelcome companion for as long as you can remember. Preceding your first panic attack, you got whopped with a major stressor. If you are female, this was likely a change in your home or family life; if you are male, the stressful event likely involved work.