Are you feeling anxious when you are in a lift, a public toilet, a tunnel or crowded places? You may be suffering from claustrophobia

Claustrophobia is the irrational fear of confined spaces. Although it can be a natural reaction to fear of being trapped, people who suffer from claustrophobia experience fear, even when there is no realistic danger in a specific situation.

Symptoms

Claustrophobia may arise from a one-off trauma that could have happened at an early age, for example, when a small child becomes trapped in a cupboard during a game, or it may emerge as the person gets older, for example when a person gets stuck in a lift.

Claustrophobia has two components, namely the fear of restriction and the fear of suffocation. Claustrophobics would go out of their way to avoid confined spaces, but they are not necessarily afraid of these areas themselves. They fear what could happen should they be confined to those areas; for example, they fear they might suffocate.

Claustrophobia symptoms may include sweating, accelerated heartbeat, nausea, fainting, light-headedness, shaking and hyperventilation.

Situations that may cause anxiety in claustrophobia sufferers include:

    • Being inside a room: the sufferer will look for an exit
    • Being inside a car: the sufferer will avoid driving on the highway
    • Being inside a building: the sufferer will avoid taking the lift
    • Being at a party: the sufferer will stand near a door
    • Being on a plane
    • While undergoing an MRI or CAT scan.

In extreme cases, the sight of a closed-door can lead to feelings of anxiety. Claustrophobia can cripple the sufferer’s social life, leading to isolation and feelings of depression.

Treatment

There is no specific cure for claustrophobia, but there are several forms of treatments. Cognitive behavioural therapy is found to be particularly effective in treating disorders where the person does not actually fear a situation, but rather the outcome of the situation. The ultimate goal of the therapy is to change misconceptions associated with what is being feared. For example, it would attempt to convince the claustrophobic that lifts are not dangerous, but are in fact very useful in getting you where you like to go faster.

Other methods also used are exposure therapy, medications or a combination of these treatments.

Our Employee Wellbeing Programme (EWP) is available 24 hours a day if you want to know more about claustrophobia.