Online Psychotherapist for Agoraphobia San Francisco

Online Psychotherapist for Agoraphobia San Francisco, CA

Online Mindfulness Therapy for agoraphobia via Skype for California, including:

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacremento, Long Beach, Oakland, Bay Area, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara

Online therapy for agoraphobia California

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Online Therapy for agoraphobia

Online Psychotherapist for treating Agoraphobia via Skype

Online Mindfulness Psychotherapist for Stopping Agoraphobia and Social Anxiety Disorder without using antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.

Speak with a Psychotherapist Online through Skype for effective online help and psychotherapy for overcoming Agoraphobia, Chronic Anxiety, Panic Attacks and Social Anxiety Disorder.

If you want to recover completely from agoraphobia you must treat the underlying conditioned anxiety reactions.

Prescription medications don’t address this. Medications only provide a temporary relief from anxiety symptoms, but do nothing to change the underlying psychological cause of your anxiety. To recover fully you need an effective form of psychotherapy that should include Exposure Therapy and Cognitive Therapy to overcome anxiety-based thinking. You also need to work directly on the anxiety that feeds those thoughts.

During Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy (Mindfulness Therapy) we work on healing these habitual reactions directly at the psychological level. This approach is very effective and most of my clients see measurable decrease in anxiety symptoms after 3-4 Skype Therapy sessions with me.

Online therapy works very well as long as you use Skype, FaceTime or Zoom so that you can see each other. Being able to see each other is required for effective communication and good psychotherapy.

Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy for Agoraphobia

Working with the Inner Imagery of Anxiety

Internally, every emotion is structured around imagery – inner pictorial representations that resonate with the emotion. For example, anger is usually associate with the color red and anger is structured around imagery that is red in color and probably hot as well.

We can learn about the structure of our inner imagery by observing our emotions with mindfulness. From what we learn, we can intuitively see what changes in the imagery might be helpful. Change the imagery and you change the structure of the emotion.

People with agoraphobia typically have a great deal of inner imagery, very often based on the feeling of emptiness, an inner void or black hole that threatens to swallow up everything.

Discovering the structure of this imagery provides a very powerful tool for changing the intensity of the anxiety underlying agoraphobia. This approach is one of the most effective treatment for agoraphobia and was pioneered by Dr. Strong in the 1980s.

Contact me to discover more about this online counseling service and book a therapy session via Skype with me. Inquiries welcome!

Everyone that I have worked with really likes the mindfulness approach that I teach for healing emotional suffering…

"Beyond healing the anxiety, my whole inner landscape is changing. I’m learning that the self-criticism, shame and doubt I have been stuck in for so long can all be met with compassionate awareness and brought to resolution. I’m starting to feel the joy Peter talks about and a real tenderness toward myself and others."

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY WITH ME TO HELP YOU OVERCOME AGORAPHOBIA

Agoraphobia Therapy Online over Skype

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong and I'm a professional psychotherapist specializing in online therapy. I offer online therapy for agoraphobia.

So, agoraphobia online therapy is very effective for people who really can't get out of the house to work with a therapist in their local area.

So, during these sessions that I offer via Skype, I focus on teaching you very effective mindfulness-based methods of working with your anxiety and panic attacks.

The real important thing to understand here is that Agoraphobia is really a psychological habit. I prefer to call it a habit rather than a disorder because when you start labeling these psychological states as disorders that tends to reinforce your sense of helplessness as a victim, and we don't want to do that.

The actual mechanism that generates the anxiety and panic attacks of agoraphobia is a habit and habits can be changed. So during online agoraphobia therapy sessions I will guide you in how to work with the underlying emotions and thought patterns that supports that anxiety.

We do this in a surprising way. We actually learn to make friends with our fear. This is very, very important. You can't change the belief when it has a very strong emotional charge based on fear. No amount of rational arguments or persuasion that you don't need to feel this way is going to change that anxiety. You have to learn to work with the anxiety directly. And that's what you do during mindfulness therapy. We actually learn to meditate on your own fear as you imagine walking or traveling out of your safe zone.

So, we set up a series of challenges, exposures, if you like, where you choose to do a particularly difficult exercise but one that you can manage. But then we prepare for this by playing it through in the mind it might be walking around the block or just simply leaving the house for a few minutes, whatever it might be. We design a challenge and then we prepare for it by meditating on it. We play it through in the mind and then we look for the fear reactions and we look for the thought reactions that feed that fear and then we develop a mindfulness-based relationship with these emotions and thoughts, and that relationship is based on friendliness.

You learn, essentially, to sit with your emotions and thoughts without becoming overwhelmed by them, without losing your balance. This is central. This is a central part of mindfulness training, that you can be with your thoughts and emotions but not be overwhelmed by them. When you can do this, then you start to break free from the reactive habits that feed our anxiety and fear.

So, we learn to sit with our emotions without becoming reactive and without identifying with those emotions. We learn to develop this other side of our identity, which we call the True Self, the Observer Mind, that which can be conscious of thoughts and emotions but is not identified with thoughts or emotions.

We then work with those emotions and begin to treat them very much as you might treat a child that's afraid. we learn to comfort the emotion itself, the fear. you build a strong relationship with it, rather like a parent to a child. And in this way the fear reaction, that we might call the Little Self is able to let go of its fear by proximity to your True Self which is fearless nature.

So, in this way we begin to build resolution pathways in the brain. You learn, basically, how to help the emotions resolve themselves, so that if they get triggered they simply resolve instantly, on the spot, through the training that you've done before you do the challenge And then you go out and walk around the block or whatever and put this training into action.

So, we repeat this process over and over again. Meditation before challenge and we do the challenge and we may come back and meditate some more and then we repeat the challenge until we no longer feel any fear in doing that challenge. Then we move on to a harder challenge. And in this way we gain more and more confidence in the process.

So, when you are able to neutralize these emotional reactions then the beliefs begin to change quite automatically. We don't need to try and change our beliefs. We simply need to change the emotional content that fuels those beliefs and makes them so powerful.

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

Online Therapy through Skype for Agoraphobia

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

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist and I specialize in mindfulness therapy delivered over Skype for help with anxiety disorders including agoraphobia.

So during online therapy sessions I'll teach you how to work with your agoraphobia, with your anxiety, with your panic attacks, using the very effective methods of mindfulness therapy.

So basically what we do is we start to design a series of challenges. These are manageable challenges that you can schedule and work on each day, extending the range of your comfort zone. Essentially, whatever those challenges are that's for you to determine. But what makes the mindfulness therapy approach so effective is that we do a lot of preparation before we do each of these challenges. And primarily the the mechanism, the the approach that I take is one of teaching you how to meditate on your challenge.

So you play that through in the mind you visualize doing that challenge. Perhaps it might be walking around the block or as simple as stepping outside the front door, whatever it is doesn't matter. But we prepare for it by playing it through in the mind and then watching for any fear reactions that occur. When you find that emotional reaction we then build a mindfulness based relationship to the fear itself. This is the key. We learn to hold that fear in the mind without becoming identified with it and without reacting to that fear reaction with more fear or with avoidance or with hatred or self-criticism or some kind of distraction.

We must not under any circumstances try to avoid the fear or anxiety. We have to build a conscious relationship with it. So that's the first part of our mindfulness meditation on our challenge. You play that challenge through in the mind. We look for the fear reaction and then we build a conscious mindful relationship with it.

The second stage as we're doing our preparation here, our training, is to help that fear resolve itself. We effectively teach the fear to resolve itself, and we do this primarily by building this conscious non-reactive relationship with the fear. That is what allows the fear to subside and resolve itself. And so we're teaching the fear how to resolve itself.

You cannot resolve fear by arguing with it or by some form of rational thought process, trying to explain to the fear that it doesn't need to be afraid. That kind of approach is not really very effective. What is effective is building this conscious non-reactive and also very compassionate relationship with the emotion itself.

Another part of our mindfulness training is to look at the imagery of the emotion, the fear. So all emotions are based around imagery, how you see it and the mind, and we can work with that imagery using mindfulness and compassion to help that imagery change. And when the imagery changes the fear diminishes. So again you are teaching the fear how to resolve itself by changing its imagery by working with imagery.

If you would like to learn more about online therapy for agoraphobia over Skype using the mindfulness therapy approaches that I have developed over the years, then please reach out to me by email and let's schedule a session.

My clients really enjoy this approach. It gives them very practical tools that they can develop themselves and it makes you much more independent. And it also does not involve medication. I do not recommend medication for treating any anxiety disorder because it doesn't allow you to change that underlying psychological habit that causes the anxiety. Medications may provide temporary relief from symptoms but that's not going to change the the mechanism that produces your anxiety. That is psychological in nature and needs to be addressed by a psychological process like mindfulness therapy.

So if you would like to get started with me, and you would like to really get over your agoraphobia then please contact me now. Lets schedule a session at a time that works for you and for me. I see people throughout North America, Western Europe, the UK and as far away as Japan and Australia. So please contact me if you'd like to learn more about this online therapy approach for overcoming agoraphobia.

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE ME TO LEARN HOW TO START SKYPE THERAPY WITH ME FOR THE EFFECTIVE TREATMENT OF AGORAPHOBIA

Mindfulness-based Online Help for Agoraphobia

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist based in Boulder Colorado, but I offer online psychotherapy via Skype for anxiety disorders and for the treatment of depression and also for the treatment of agoraphobia. So many people like the idea of working with an online therapist to overcome agoraphobia. It means that you can have your sessions at home, which is an important consideration if you are afraid of leaving home in the first place.

So online therapy for agoraphobia is a way of getting the help that you need to overcome this anxiety disorder.

So I offer mindfulness based help for agoraphobia, and this is very different than conventional talk therapy and it actually helps you work with your emotions directly yourself. It teaches you how to change that habit of becoming identified with your emotional reactions, with your fear, anxiety or panic attacks.

The biggest problem that most people suffering from anxiety or depression have to deal with this problem of habitual reactive identification. This is where we simply become consumed by the emotion, we become overwhelmed by it, we become a prisoner of that emotional reaction. And this is a habit. This is a psychological habit. We become conditioned to identify with the emotion in that way and it operates unconsciously.

So in mindfulness therapy we work on making it conscious. We actually work on making the anxiety much more conscious so that we can build a conscious relationship with the anxiety and learn to break this habit of reactive identification. So you can hold the anxiety in the mind as an object and not become identified with it and not become consumed by it. That is very important, if not is totally essential part of recovery from any anxiety disorder, including agoraphobia.

One of the things that we look at in great detail also, is the imagery of your emotions. So the imagery is what actually creates the emotion, the anxiety. This imagery typically is going to be very large, is going to be very close and probably all consuming. It is going to be overwhelming because it is very large in size.

That imagery, the size of the emotion, is what actually makes the emotion work. When we actually get to see the imagery consciously using mindfulness we can then exercise choice. We can begin to explore changing this habitual imagery.

And the rule is when you change the imagery you change the emotion.

The other very important principle of mindfulness based therapy is learning how to hold the anxiety and overcome the habit of reacting to the anxiety.

So we usually react with aversion. You do not like the unpleasant feelings associated with anxiety so we try to push it away. We try to avoid it. We try to distract ourselves from it in any way we can. But the rule here is, any form of reactivity will simply feed the anxiety. It will not help it heal or resolve itself.

The other part of the mindfulness based approach to healing Anxiety and Agoraphobia is to take on deliberate challenges. Exposure therapy, in a sense. But mindfulness based exposure therapy is much more effective than classical exposure therapy.

So this is where you will set up a schedule of small challenges that typically would create anxiety but then you work on training yourself ahead of each challenge using mindfulness to find the emotion that gets case triggered and then to help it heal by doing things like changing its size, changing its imagery and changing your relationship to that anxiety that gets triggered in that situation.

So if you'd like to learn more about the mindfulness based approach to healing anxiety and you'd like help with your agoraphobia then please contact me by email and let's schedule a therapy session via Skype.

The mindfulness based approach is very, very effective and very focused in its approach. And generally people see quite noticeable changes in a relatively short time. I usually say you should expect to see changes within three to four weeks when you start applying the mindfulness based techniques that I will teach you during the sessions and that we will practice together during sessions.

So if you would like to learn more please go to my website and then please contact me. Ask any questions you may have about online therapy for agoraphobia.

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR HELP WITH AGORAPHOBIA, PANIC ATTACKS & ANXIETY

Online Mindfulness Therapy for agoraphobia via Skype for California, including:

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacremento, Long Beach, Oakland, Bay Area, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara

Online therapy for agoraphobia California

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Online therapy for agoraphobia

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Online Mindfulness Therapy for agoraphobia