I went through agoraphobia several years ago. My psychologist had me do exposure therapy to overcome it. He had me work through the issue first by identifying why I had it and then having me take little baby steps toward overcoming the problem. After I accomplished one step successfully and felt comfortable and safe, he had me reward myself with a small gift or special meal. Then he would assign me another step.

We kept going on like this for several months. That is when I could feel that I was making real progress and was able to go out into the public without major fears. I won't lie...there were a couple little set-backs along the way, but exposure therapy really did the trick for me. It took a couple years to really get comfortable and feel like I had overcome the problem.

A couple years later, I went to a national convention for people in my profession. I went up on stage and read a paper that I had written based on some research I had done. I forced myself to do this just to prove to myself that I had taken the bull by the horns. There is no way I could have done this without the exposure therapy. I would very highly recommend this type of therapy to anyone with agoraphobia or social phobia.