Understanding the difference between agoraphobia and panic disorder is helpful in the treatment of either condition.

Panic disorder is the broader term and describes a condition in which a person experiences frequent, intense, but seemingly random panic attacks. The condition also features excessive worry about when and where the next panic attack will strike. Treatment for panic disorder can be focused mainly on cognitive and behavioral techniques to gain control over panic symptoms.

Agoraphobia is an advanced form of panic disorder developed by approximately one-third of panic sufferers. Instead of having random panic attacks, the agoraphobic learns to associate panic with specific places and situations in which the attacks are experienced. Through repeated experience, these places and situations become triggers for panic episodes, and the agoraphobic develops a deeply rooted, conditioned fear of these triggers. This process is called conditioning and is common to most phobias.

Agoraphobics, in particular, are conditioned to fear things like being outdoors, being away from home, being stuck among crowds of people, sitting in the middle row of a theater, standing in lines, taking elevators, crossing a bridges, driving cars, or using public transportation like buses and planes. They also develop a conditioned fear of having a panic attack while outside in wide open spaces with no one around to help you. However, most people with agoraphobia avoid being around people in public places because they are afraid of panicking and losing control in front of others and embarrassing themselves.

Because phobic conditioning can be so strong, getting free from agoraphobia takes more than just learning to stop a panic attack. It takes breaking mental attachments between panic and everything it is associated with. This takes a plan to systematically reverse the conditioning process.

That's why some self-help programs for anxiety may be too general to help you recover from a phobia. To get free from agoraphobia, you need a recovery program that is designed to help you overcome this condition specifically. The problem is, there are many self-help programs that only address the symptoms of anxiety and panic, but do not address the strong conditioning that occurs in the development of agoraphobia.

To get completely free from agoraphobia, choose a program that will help you reverse the conditioning process, like systematic desensitization (or gradual exposure) in which you unlearn conditioned fear. You must undo the phobic conditioning that separates agoraphobia from mere panic disorder.