This Publication Is Searchable The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy Section 15. Psychiatric Disorders Chapter 187. Due To A Physical Disorder Or A Substance Phobic Disorders Disorders involving persistent, unrealistic, yet intense anxiety that, unlike the free-floating anxiety of panic disorder, is attached to external situations or stimuli. Persons who have a phobia avoid such situations or stimuli or endure them only with great distress. But they retain insight and recognize the excessiveness of their anxiety.
Agoraphobia is more common than panic disorder.
Symptoms and Signs Agoraphobia, translated literally, means fear of the marketplace or of open spaces. More specifically, it involves anticipatory anxiety about and a desire to avoid situations in which a person might be trapped without a graceful way to leave if anxiety develops. Thus, standing in lines at a bank or at the supermarket checkout, sitting in the middle of a long row in a theater or classroom, and using public transportation, such as a bus or an airplane, are difficult for persons with agoraphobia. Some persons develop agoraphobia after a panic attack in a typical agoraphobic situation. Others simply feel uncomfortable in such a situation and may never, or only later, have panic attacks there.