Identifying the Root of your Behavior to Ovecome Agoraphobia

As part of overcoming Agoraphobia, we are going to help you identify the root of your anxiety disorder and how it makes you behave. What causes you to act the way you do in response to your Agoraphobia? Then we can move on to ways you can modify your behavior so that you can act differently and overcome your Agoraphobia. Our goal is to help you strengthen the new behaviors you have created. Your new behavior will train your mind to believe that you can do anything you put your mind to, including going into public places without Agoraphobia.

We will be using positive reinforcement principles and tokens or reward point paradigms. Using positive reinforcement principles, we can help you identify the root of your Agoraphobia. Our goal for you is to help you decrease or increase a certain behavior, according to whether or not it is positive. After you succeed, offer yourself a reward for your accomplishments. Make sure that the reward is something you treasure, e.g. money, ice cream, clothes, etc.

You are now really going to get to grips with practical steps toward conquering your Agoraphobia but you will be do this slowly, so that you can sustain your progress. You will reward yourself for taking these baby steps.

Positive reinforcement consists of the response followed by rewards.

Your first is to go out in the public and say hello to people you do not know. When you pass strangers in the street, say “hello”. Note how you felt and what reactions you got.

Your goal is to maintain your new behavior until you are able to use it regularly and rewards will help you do that.

Establish a point or token system to reward yourself each time you make progress or use your new behavior. Set up your token system as a contract and each time you use your new behavior cash in your points. For each point you earn, it will add to other points that you can use to cash in later. When you reach 100 points, you qualify to use them for something that you value. For example, 100 = $10. When you reach 100 points take $10 and spend it, anyway you choose.

This cognitive behavioral therapy process will help you increase the use of your new behavior and using it assertively to overcome Agoraphobia. The points system will enable you to build up small rewards for small achievements and use it toward your larger goals in overcoming Agoraphobia.

In order to identify the root of any behavior you have to develop new behaviors. We can use the successive approximations principle to help you create new behaviors or use shaping as a way to help you successfully take baby steps toward that final behavior of overcoming Agoraphobia which will be rewarded with something more significant.

You should now look for someone to help you in overcoming your Agoraphobia, someone whose behavior you approve of that you know well.

Using the principles of modeling, in order to learn new behaviors you have to have models. Your goal is to find someone with a positive nature who demonstrates good behaviors. Stay close to that person and watch his or her every move and how they respond in situations in public places. Use your diary to make notes about your observation. Notice the consequences and punishment that occurs as the person demonstrates his or her behavior.

Use the principle of cues to help encourage a specific behavior during specific situations. Ask your enforcer, the person you choose to observe to help you discover and identify the cues, particular before or after the signals occur.

Use the discrimination principle to encourage you to use a specific behavior during a specific situation. Again, identify the cues for your Agoraphobia.

Maintaining a new positive behavior can be used to help you achieve your goals in overcoming Agoraphobia. This technique involves the use of intermittent reinforcement, to encourage you to continue using and recognized behavior with very few or no incentives at all. The technique also uses contracts to help you maintain a new behavior which is fundamental to overcoming Agoraphobia.

Intermittent reinforcement is designed to help you intermittently or gradually stop frequent behaviors while rewarding any correct behaviors used. For example, say each time you think about going to the supermarket, you fear that you will break out into a panic attack. The thoughts hinder you from taking care of your business or shopping. Instead of thinking this way, learn to say, “I am in charge of my life. Today I will be going to the supermarket.”

Make a contract that clearly outlines your goal to change your behavior. Use the contingency contract format, which involves breaking down your goals into six steps.

Contingency contract format

1. Identify the problems that you want to solve
2. Collect some information to help you verify the frequency of the undesired behavior, e.g. write down in your diary how often your Agoraphobia punishes you with negative effects, and then write in your diary the frequency with which you modify your behavior in taking steps to overcome Agoraphobia.
3. Set realistic goals
4. Create plans to reach your goals
5. Evaluate and observe any measurable changes
6. Repeat step 4 if you do not succeed. If your plans work, maintain them.