Find Therapy via Zoom for Agoraphobia

Find Therapy via Zoom for Agoraphobia

Online Therapist to treat Agoraphobia via Skype and Zoom

Online Mindfulness Psychotherapy via Zoom or Skype for Overcoming Agoraphobia and Social Anxiety Disorder without relying on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.

Speak with a Psychotherapist Online over Skype for effective online help and mindfulness therapy for Agoraphobia

Email me to learn more about this online counseling service and organize a Skype therapy session with me. Inquiries welcome!

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE FOR DETAILS AND TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION WITH ME FOR THE EFFECTIVE TREATMENT OF AGORAPHOBIA

Online Therapy for agoraphobia

Online Therapy via Skype is available for the USA, Canada, UK & Western Europe.

Go to my main website to learn more and to schedule a Skype Therapy session: Online Therapy for agoraphobia

Main LinkedIn article: Online Therapy for Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia online support - Skype Therapy or Zoom Therapy for help overcoming agoraphobia

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong and I'm a professional psychotherapist specializing in mindfulness therapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders, including agoraphobia. So if you're looking for online support for agoraphobia then this is a good service for you to consider. Just go to my website and read more about this online therapy service and the mindfulness therapy approach for agoraphobia, and email me with any questions you may have. 

So mindfulness therapy is one of the most effective ways of treating anxiety disorders such as agoraphobia. What it does is it teaches you how to break free from this central problem that we call Reactive Identification. This is where we become overwhelmed by thoughts and emotional reactions that get triggered, and it's very important to break this habit because every time we become overwhelmed and become identified with our thoughts and with our emotions we feed those emotions and they become stronger and this simply intensifies the anxiety. 

The approach to overcoming agoraphobia is one of mindfulness-based exposure therapy. It's fairly straightforward. Basically, you will design a number of challenges that you will prepare for each and every day. And you start with very simple challenges that you can do with very little anxiety. But nevertheless you prepare for that challenge, whether it's walking outside into the garden or walking around the corner. That's often a big trigger for many agoraphobics when they can no longer see their house. Whatever the challenge we practice for it beforehand. And that's really what makes mindfulness-based exposure therapy for agoraphobia somewhat different than more conventional approaches. 

We do this by playing through the challenge in our mind, we imagine ourselves doing the challenge, but we would then watch for any anxiety that gets triggered in the mind. And this is before we do the challenge. 

When we notice that anxiety that gets triggered by the thoughts of walking around the garden, or around the block or whatever it might be. Then we focus our conscious awareness, our mindfulness skills on that emotion with two purposes in mind. The first purpose is to establish a relationship with that emotion which is conscious and in which you do not become overwhelmed, is not reactively identify with that emotion, you're able to be with the fear but not become afraid. So that's the first essential part of training and preparation before you do any of your challenges. 

The second part of preparing for our challenge is to work with the emotion itself and help it heal, help it resolve, help it reduce its intensity, again before you ever do the challenge itself. And there's a number of ways that we do this, but yet again the most effective first step is to establish a relationship with your fear in which you are not afraid. So you are effectively being with your emotion and not feeding that fear. So you, in that process, develop more and more freedom from that fear. You become stronger by sitting with that fear. 

We also work with other factors which contribute to the anxiety such as the imagery of the fear, how you see it and the mind is absolutely central to how the motion works. And typically the fear is very large and very close and that's what causes that fear to manifest. When we start to investigate this imagery we can change it because we have a conscious relationship with it. When you change the imagery you most definitely change the emotion. So that's another very important part of mindfulness therapy which is part of the training that you will do yourself before you do your challenge. 

I will teach you how to do these two steps involved in preparation for your challenges. And when you practice this in this very strategic focused way and then you will most definitely diminish that anxiety until you feel completely confident and comfortable in doing your first challenge and then moving on to a harder challenge. And in this way we progress until we overcome the agoraphobia altogether. 

So if you'd like to learn more about how to do all this simply go to my website and please send me an email and we can schedule some therapy sessions at a time that works for you. 

Get Help from an Online Therapist for Agoraphobia

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY VIA ZOOM TO HELP YOU OVERCOME AGORAPHOBIA

Agoraphobia Therapy Online via Skype or Zoom

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I provide online therapy via Skype and Zoom for the treatment of anxiety disorders, including agoraphobia. 

So if you're interested in online psychotherapy for agoraphobia, then I invite you to learn more by visiting my website and then simply e-mail me. Feel free to ask any questions you may have about online therapy and this approach that I specialize in for treating agoraphobia, without the use of medications. I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and if you feel comfortable with this approach, then we can schedule a Skype therapy session and you can evaluate for yourself if this is the right approach for you. It certainly is for the majority of people that I've worked with over the last 10 or so years. 

I see a lot of people who suffer from agoraphobia, not surprisingly, since it's very difficult to leave the security of home when you're suffering from agoraphobia. 

So the approach that I have developed over the years is called mindfulness therapy and specifically mindfulness-based exposure therapy. So you know already that you need to face your anxiety, you need some form of exposure therapy plan and protocol; that's going to be an essential part of your recovery process. But it's how you go about that that makes all the difference. 

So I do not advocate straightforward exposure therapy in its usual form, which simply means exposing yourself incrementally to your challenges until you develop more comfort with them through familiarization. I think that is a rather ineffective and crude approach to exposure therapy. 

It Is much, much more effective when you do a lot of detailed preparation and training before you do each of your exposure challenges, whatever that might be. 

So many people that I've worked with suffering from agoraphobia feel very uncomfortable in public places where there are lots of other people around. The real underlying fear for most people with agoraphobia is the sense of being out of your comfort zone and worrying about having a panic attack in that environment and not feeling that you have an escape route. You feel trapped in that environment. That's very common. 

There are many different types of agoraphobia. A lot of people just feel very uncomfortable driving, for example. They can leave their house, but they just cannot drive on a busy road. That's a different quality of agoraphobia. But it's basically any situation where you feel trapped. 

So in the mindfulness-based exposure therapy approach we identify all of our challenges, all of our triggers. That's the first step. It's very good to write those down, make a list of your triggers. And then we set up a strategy of exposure challenges each day. And we make sure that we stick to that strategy. 

We do not skip the practical challenges because avoidance, of course, is one of the big problems with agoraphobia, and the more that you avoid anxiety-producing situations, the more you're likely to reinforce that anxiety. I also don't recommend medications, because, really, medications are simply another form of avoidance. They're not really equipping you with new ways of working with your anxiety that resolve that anxiety; it is just covering up the symptoms. And that's not really an effective treatment. 

The only effective treatment is to strategically and intelligently design an exposure protocol that you follow through, religiously. So how do we go about doing this in the Mindfulness-based exposure approach? 

Well, we choose one of those challenges that we're going to work on. It doesn't matter how big or small it is, something that you feel is a good challenge, not too stressful, but sufficient that it creates anxiety. 

We then prepare for that challenge by learning how to apply mindfulness to work with that anxiety. 

This approach is very effective and most people see very big changes within quite a short period of time. This is quite different than the classical talk therapy or counseling. It's actually working at the deep process level that creates your anxiety. It works at the psychological level directly. That's the important thing. 

So please contact me if you are struggling with agoraphobia and you are committed to overcoming your agoraphobia. 

Agoraphobia Help Online via Skype or Zoom

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE ME TO LEARN HOW TO START SKYPE THERAPY WITH ME TO HELP YOU OVERCOME AGORAPHOBIA

Online treatment plan for agoraphobia using Mindfulness Therapy

Exposure Therapy is an essential part of the recovery process, but is not sufficient by itself. You have to engage in thorough training before you do each exposure challenge to prevent simply re-traumatizing yourself. Hence the development of Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy, an approach that I developed several years ago and have found to be very effective when working with clients suffering from agoraphobia.

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist and I offer online therapy over Skype and Zoom, which of course, is very convenient and necessary if you're suffering from agoraphobia or other anxiety condition that keeps you housebound. 

So I'm often asked, "What is the best treatment for agoraphobia?" "What's the best way to overcome the anxiety and panic attacks that accompany agoraphobia?" From my experience working with people suffering from agoraphobia, over the last ten years or so now, I find that the best approach is what I call Mindfulness Therapy. This is a system of work that I've been developing for many years which really works at the underlying core level of your anxiety. It helps you break free from those patterns of habitual reactivity that cause your anxiety. It works by changing the anxiety directly so that it is not habitually triggered by the common triggers that you encounter in your agoraphobia. 

We have to uncover these underlying anxiety habits and then work on changing them. And the best way to doing this is what I call Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy. So this means that you actively create a series of exposure challenges. That might be walking around the block or driving a short distance if you can still drive or even just stepping outside the front door. But it doesn't matter what the challenges are. But it is essential that you identify challenges that are accompanied by a degree of anxiety and then start working on those challenges and training yourself out of the reactive anxiety that has become habitual. 

The way that we train ourselves out of the anxiety reactions is not by simply repeated exposure as is often taught. Repeated exposure is very inefficient and you risk intensifying the anxiety. 

So in mindfulness-based exposure therapy we prepare for each challenge in a very thorough way before you do the challenge, and this preparation is called a rehearsal meditation. It's all about training. So in a rehearsal meditation you imagine doing that challenge and then you look specifically for any anxiety that gets triggered. And then you start to work with that anxiety, working with its structure and helping change that anxiety directly. 

So if you would like help with your agoraphobia, please contact me and let's schedule some therapy sessions over Skype and I will teach you exactly how to apply mindfulness to overcome your agoraphobia. So please contact me if you'd like to get started with the mindfulness approach to overcoming agoraphobia.

How to overcome agoraphobia without medication - Online Mindfulness Therapy for Agoraphobia

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong. I am a professional psychotherapist specializing in mindfulness therapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders and depression and addictions and many other emotional problems that respond well to mindfulness therapy. One particular anxiety disorder that I work with a great deal is agoraphobia. So if you're interested in overcoming agoraphobia without the use of medications but through learning the strategic methods of mindfulness training and therapy then do please contact me and tell me more about your condition and I will be happy to answer any questions you have. 

When you feel ready you can schedule a Skype Therapy session with me and I will teach you how to overcome agoraphobia without medications. 

It's important to understand that medications are only a temporary solution. They do not and are not designed to change the underlying psychological habitual process that generates anxiety. Medications simply reduce symptoms but really they are not really a good choice in the long run because they leave you vulnerable to those underlying psychological habits that create the anxiety. You want to change those habits and that's the focus of mindfulness therapy. I will teach you how to neutralize those underlying habits that create anxiety. 

So what triggers anxiety in agoraphobia? Well is generally triggered by thoughts and beliefs and anticipation and rumination whereby you get trapped in cycles of fear-based thinking. 

What will happen if I have a panic attack away from home? How will I get home? The fear of being trapped, the fear of not being able to get back to a secure zone, basically. 

So agoraphobia is characterized by being a prisoner of a comfort zone which often gets smaller and smaller as the disorder progresses. So we have to work on building strategies to get you out of that prison, and we do that by working on those emotional habits directly. Typically we are not really aware of our anxiety producing habits. They operate unconsciously like most habits and we just blindly accept them. We identify with these habits and we suffer because of that. 

So the first thing that we do in mindfulness therapy is identifying those thought reactions themselves that trigger the anxiety. We then work in a very specific way with those thoughts reactions and beliefs using various techniques. The first and most important one is learning to overcome this habit of identification so that we can hold the thought in our mind whatever it might be. The fear of fainting, the fear of being out of control, the fear of having a panic attack, whatever it might be. 

We do this by meditating on those thoughts. We make every effort not to avoid those thoughts.

So that's very important. That is the first part of training. We call this mindfulness-based exposure therapy. We are exposing ourselves to those thoughts; those triggers and we train ourselves out of the habit of blindly identifying with them and feeding the anxiety.

The second way we work with the anxiety thoughts is to work with their imagery. We look at the imagery of the thoughts, how we see the emotion in the mind that gets triggered by these reactive thoughts is very important. That imagery is what actually creates the identity. And we work with that imagery in a way that neutralizes the anxiety.

Now the next part of our approach to overcoming agoraphobia that doesn't require medication is to design a schedule of daily challenges. So this is where we will expose ourselves to a particular situation that would tend to generate those reactive anxiety-producing thoughts. 

And with the mindfulness-based exposure therapy that I've been describing, you can expect to see really effective progress within a few sessions. Usually after the first three or four weeks of applying the mindfulness techniques that I will teach you, you will notice significant reduction in anxiety and the ability to now start extending your range out of that prison. 

So if you'd like to learn more about how to overcome the agoraphobia without using medication, then please email me and let's schedule a Skype Therapy session. 

Online help for agoraphobia

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION TO HELP YOU OVERCOME AGORAPHOBIA

How do I overcome my agoraphobia without medication? Online Mindfulness Therapy for Agoraphobia

Email me to schedule a Skype therapy session with Dr. Peter Strong, specialist in online mindfulness therapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders, including agoraphobia, and depression.

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional online psychotherapist based in Colorado and I offer online therapy via Skype to help people manage anxiety and depression more effectively using the techniques of mindfulness therapy. 

This is a system of psychotherapy that I've been developing over the last ten or more years now that seems to be extremely effective for anxiety and also depression but basically is very effective for helping you heal the underlying anxiety itself directly. And it does this and a variety of ways one of which is by helping you work on those patterns of reactive thinking that feed the anxiety. 

So with agoraphobia the typical situation is that we get obsessed with anxiety producing thoughts about what will happen to us if we leave our safety zone for example that's a common kind of thought pattern. You know the fear of having a panic attack in public. The fear of fainting or being sick or anything else like that. These are these are fed by a whole system of internal dialogue that is relentless and feeding that anxiety. 

So I'm often asked how can I overcome my agoraphobia without using medication and to do this effectively you have to address this underlying psychological process of reactive thinking that's feeding your anxiety. Medications have their prey's place you know the selective serotonin uptake inhibitors you know these have their place but medications can change that underlying process. All the medication will ever do is reduce symptoms for a while. But that's not really healing the problem is not changing the essential underlying psychological habits that are creating your anxiety and fear. 

So this is why it is recommended that you look into process oriented psychotherapy like cognitive behavioral therapy or exposure and prevention type protocols. Because these help you actually deal with that underlying reactive process. 

I teach mindfulness based exposure therapy which is really great very effective indeed for agoraphobia specifically. It really helps you develop a strategic approach to overcoming your anxiety. So some of the exposure therapy models are OK up to a point but they don't really tell you how to process the anxiety itself directly. What to do with that emotion? In mindfulness work we work exclusively on reprocessing that emotion, that habit that gets activated. 

If you'd like to learn more about the mindfulness approach for healing anxiety including agoraphobia then simply go to my website. Learn More and e-mail me with any questions you may have. Of course it's very convenient to be able to do your psychotherapy sessions online if you're suffering from agoraphobia, and that's one of the reasons why I specialize in Skype Therapy. It's very important that you can see each other. That's why we use Skype. This improves the quality of communication and makes the therapy sessions much more effective. 

So during our sessions together I will teach you how to develop a strategy for overcoming your anxiety using mindfulness based exposure therapy. So what does this entail? Well it it entails designing a series of challenges that are manageable but that tend to produce anxiety. So it might be simply leaving the comfort of your own home and walking to a shop or going to a mall or any number of things. You will know what those triggers are that trigger your anxiety and panic attacks. 

We design a series of challenges where we basically take one challenge and we prepare for it using mindfulness methods. This basically means playing the challenge through in the mind, visualizing going to the mall for example, and then watching for the anxiety reaction and all of the reactive thoughts that get triggered when that anxiety is triggered in the mind. 

When we find those anxiety thoughts and the emotion itself we then start to build a different kind of relationship with it that is based on consciousness, on mindfulness, where we can become the observer of these thoughts and emotions but without becoming identified with them. In this way we break the habit that causes our anxiety.

Let me help you break free from your agoraphobia through Mindfulness Therapy.

Online Psychotherapist for help with Agoraphobia via Skype

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE FOR DETAILS AND TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION WITH ME TO HELP YOU OVERCOME AGORAPHOBIA

Teletherapy for Agoraphobia via Skype

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I provide online therapy by Skype for the treatment of anxiety disorders, including agoraphobia. So if you're looking for teletherapy for agoraphobia, then I invite you to go to my website and learn more about the online therapy service that I offer. 

All my sessions are done via Skype. That is quite important. You must be able to see each other in order to have a successful psychotherapy experience. Being able to see each other means that the sessions will be much more effective in helping you learn how to work with your anxiety. So that's the primary focus of these teletherapy sessions. I will teach you very practical mindfulness-based methods that I have developed and found to be very effective for overcoming anxiety and panic attacks and basically allowing you to recover from the very debilitating effects of agoraphobia. 

The primary method that I will teach you during the online sessions is called mindfulness-based exposure therapy. And this is where we design a series of exposures that might be quite simple to begin with and then progressively more difficult that you then practice yourself at home between sessions. 

The mindfulness part of this practice is preparing before you do each challenge. So if it's, for example, walking to a local shop or going into a mall or even driving your car for a short period, then you basically, will run through that challenge in your imagination, you'll visualize doing that challenge and specifically look for any anxiety reactions that may occur. When you find those anxiety reactions you then start to work with them using the methods of Mindfulness Therapy, which I will teach you during these sessions. 

But primarily the idea here is that you train yourself to heal those anxiety reactions before you do the exposure challenge. That's the important principle here. You have to train with that anxiety to neutralize it before you do the challenge. When you've done that, when you've neutralized that anxiety reaction so you can imagine doing that challenge without feeling any anxiety, then when you do the exposure challenge that will reinforce this new perception, this new way of processing the particular triggers that are associated with that challenge. 

So, for example, one person that I worked with for a few months was not able to leave the house at all. She could not leave the front door, the thought of that was completely overwhelming. The anxiety was totally preventing her stepping outside the front door. 

So the mindfulness-based exposure therapy is about having her imagine her stepping out side the front door, whether it's one or two feet, it doesn't matter. But we designed that challenge. We then imagine doing it. We look for that anxiety and then we start to develop a mindful relationship with that anxiety that is based on compassion and is based on a very strong non-reactive relationship with the emotion itself. 

So the real problem is that when anxiety gets triggered it, it tends to proliferate. It triggers more anxiety through reactive thoughts and that simply feeds the anxiety and it stops it from healing. But when you can sit with that anxiety and not react, then you're not feeding that anxiety and it begins to diminish in intensity. The more that you can sit with it without reacting the less intense it beccomes. 

And when you've done this in a very focused way, by actually deliberately bringing your mindful attention to that anxiety, that rate of neutralizing the anxiety greatly increases. So this is what we do before we do the challenge. We work with the anxiety, learning to be with it without reacting and learning to relate to that anxiety with compassion. That is, how can you help that anxiety feel more comfortable? You learn how to comfort the emotion in the same way that you might comfort a child, for example, that was afraid. How would you do that? You would establish a conscious, non-reactive relationship with the child. This is what we need to do internally. We need to establish this quality of non-reactive, compassionate relationship with our anxiety. 

That is what will allow that anxiety to heal much more than any other methods and certainly more than trying to struggle through the anxiety. That approach tends to reinforce the anxiety yet again because it's providing evidence of how difficult it is to step outside the front door. 

We want to be able to imagine stepping outside the front door with no anxiety at all. Then once you do that, it now establishes a new experience that becomes learned and well established in the mind and in the brain as a new learned pathway, that stepping outside the front door is no longer a source of anxiety. 

And then you would move on to the next challenge, which might be walking to the street. And so on. So we work in is very focused and strategic way. This is what is called Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy and it's very, very effective. It's much more effective than traditional exposure therapy. It's completely different than talk therapy in the conventional sense. Trying to understand your anxiety and trying to convince yourself that you don't need to experience the anxiety, that it's irrational. That kind of approach, in my experience, is practically totally ineffective. 

What does work is when you gain the actual experience. First in the mind through imaginational exposure, if you like, and then in the actual exposure, afterwards. That experience is what produces the changes. 

So if you'd like to learn more about teletherapy for agoraphobia and other anxiety disorders using Skype, then do please look at my website and contact me if you have any questions. 

We can schedule a Skype therapy session and you can see for yourself how this works. Most people see quite substantial improvements after the first two or three sessions once you start learning and applying the mindfulness approach that I that I will teach you. It's very, very effective. So please contact me if you would like to learn how to overcome your anxiety and apply this kind of methodology. Thank you. 

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE FOR DETAILS AND TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION WITH ME FOR HELP WITH AGORAPHOBIA, PANIC ATTACKS & ANXIETY

Online Therapy via Skype is available for the USA, Canada, UK & Western Europe.

Go to my main website to learn more and to schedule a Skype Therapy session: Online Therapy for agoraphobia