The intense feelings of anxiety and panic generated by an agoraphobia disorder bring many people to our clinic here in the UK. It is estimated that around 5% of the population experience this confining and restricting disorder and it is the one phobia which is regularly treated as a medical condition.

As anyone who has ever experienced agoraphobia anxiety or a similar anxiety disorder is only too well aware, it is a condition that has the ability to produce intense and often incapacitating feelings of fear and panic.

Until fairly recently, agoraphobia was defined simply as the fear of open spaces, but the term has now been expanded to include a number of other fears, including the fear of public places and crowds, the fear of travelling alone, or simply the fear of leaving the home or other 'safe' area.

When the individual is in the grips of agoraphobia and panic, the feeling can be one of absolute terror. Because these attacks can be unpredictable, occurring anywhere and at any time, the person experiencing them is very often terrified of them happening in a public place, where they feel the most vulnerable.

This can really compound and intensify feelings of anxiety and panic, producing a very real fear of public places, fear of crowds, fear of travelling alone and fear of leaving home.

Indeed, such intense fear can virtually force the person needing agoraphobia help to avoid leaving the home and putting him or herself into a situation that they feel might leave them vulnerable.

Agoraphobia disorder does appear to be more common in women than in men, although this may simply be because women tend to seek outside help with the condition more than do men. This is a disorder that can often manifest in a person's twenties and can persist for years, if left untreated.

The good news is that skilfully applied transformational hypnotherapy can indeed be used as an effective agoraphobia treatment leading to an agoraphobia cure.

We know that agoraphobia and panic are intense feelings generated at the level of the subconscious mind - the home and repository of all feelings. The scary feelings are experienced because of an over-reaction by the subconscious mind which produces feelings inappropriate to the situation and circumstance. It imagines danger and so produces fear where no real reason for that fear exists.

In reality, though, the subconscious mind just cannot discern the difference between the imaginary and the real. In order to prove this, all you need do is to imagine yourself sucking on a lemon wedge. An imaginary lemon can produce exactly the same effect as a real lemon - tightening of jaw muscles, increased salivation - because for the subconscious mind there really is no difference between the imagined and the real.

With agoraphobia and panic, the subconscious mind has got things wrong. Imagining that a really harmless situation is in fact dangerous, it reacts by flooding the body with the hormone adrenalin -- in a similar manner that an imagined wedge of lemon floods the mouth with saliva -- and this, of course, produces feelings of anxiety and panic.

Through the medium of transformational hypnotherapy, we can adjust false beliefs and perceptions held by the subconscious mind and correctly align them with reality. Having understood the origin of the faulty perception at the subconscious level, we can then neutralise it and free the individual to move on with his or her life.

There really is no need to continue to experience agoraphobia and panic. If agoraphobia disorder is a part of your life, real help is available: Transformational hypnotherapy can indeed provide effective agoraphobia treatment leading to an effective agoraphobia cure.