How to Develop a Plan for Agoraphobia & Generalized Anxiety

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 6.8 million of the people in the United States over age 18 suffer from generalized anxiety disorder in a given year. In that same year, 1.8 million people suffer from agoraphobia, which is often an unwelcome addition to generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder. Making a plan to overcome agoraphobia in particular can be effective, and can help free you from this debilitating disorder.

Instructions

• 1

  Make an appointment with a cognitive behavioral therapist. This person can support your efforts to follow through with your plan to beat agoraphobia and generalized anxiety disorder. He can also make sure that your plan is realistic and allows for setbacks.

• 2

  Identify the first activity you want to do. If you are housebound, you may simply want to be able to walk around the block. Agoraphobics who are not housebound, but who set other limitations on themselves may want to plan to take a car trip out of their hometown, go to the supermarket alone or another task that has been out of reach. According to the Mayo Clinic, "through gradually practicing going to feared places, people with agoraphobia learn that the fears don't come true and that their anxiety goes away with time." Your plan will provide you with a psychological (and sometimes literal) road map to help you practice overcoming your fears.

• 3

  Break the activity down into 10 to 15 sequential steps. For example, if your goal is to go to the supermarket alone, your plan would look something like this:

  1. Make a shopping list. Imagine getting in the car and driving to the store while doing relaxation breathing. Imagine a positive outcome.

  2. Drive past a nearby convenience store with a friend.

  3. Drive to the convenience store with a friend and go in with the friend to purchase a soda.

  4. Drive to the convenience store with a friend and go in alone to purchase a soda.

  5. Drive to the grocery store with a friend. Sit in the parking lot and talk for five minutes.

  6. The next trip, go into the grocery store with a friend and purchase one item.

  7. The following trip, enter the grocery store with a friend and purchase ten items.

  8. Drive to the grocery store alone.

  9. Drive to the grocery store alone and sit in the parking lot for five minutes.

  10. Drive to the grocery store alone and enter the store. You do not need to purchase anything.

  11. Drive to the grocery store and purchase one thing.

  12. Drive to the grocery store and purchase ten things.

  13. Make a new shopping list, drive to the store and shop for the items on the list.

• 4

  Practice the steps on your plan a minimum of two times a week. If you wait a long time between steps, you can lose your momentum and will want to start over.

• 5

  Prepare for setbacks. If you have a panic attack and leave during one of the tasks you have assigned yourself in your plan, simply attempt the task again the next day. If needed, you can repeat the previous day's task a few times until you have built up your comfort level.

• 6

  Create a separate plan to address remaining generalized anxiety. This plan should be a simple one that will help you identify thinking errors, otherwise known as cognitive distortions. You may want to simply keep a copy of common thinking errors and a notebook, so that you can write down the thinking error when you catch yourself having one and experience the resulting anxiety.