Constructing panic : the discourse of agoraphobia

Bibliographic Information

Constructing panic : the discourse of agoraphobia

Lisa Capps and Elinor Ochs

Harvard University Press, 1995

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Meg Logan has not been farther than two miles from home in six years. She has agoraphobia, a debilitating anxiety disorder that entraps its sufferers in the fear of leaving safe havens such as home. Paradoxically, while at this safe haven, agoraphobics spend much of their time ruminating over past panic experiences and imagining similar hypothetical situations. In doing so, they create a narrative that both describes their experience and locks them into it. Constructing Panic offers an unprecedented analysis of one patient's experience of agoraphobia. In this novel interdisciplinary collaboration between a clinical psychologist and a linguist, the authors probe Meg's stories for constructions of emotions, actions, and events. They illustrate how Meg uses grammar and narrative structure to create and recreate emotional experiences that maintain her agoraphobic identity. In this work Capps and Ochs propose a startling new view of agoraphobia as a communicative disorder. Constructing Panic opens up the largely overlooked potential for linguistic and narrative analysis by revealing the roots of panic and by offering a unique framework for therapeutic intervention. Readers will find in these pages hope for managing panic through careful attention to how we tell the story of our lives.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jerome Bruner 1. The Agony of Agoraphobia 2. In Her Own Words 3. Telling Panic 4. A Grammar of Panic 5. Accommodation as a Source of Panic 6. Nonaccommodation as an Outcome of Panic 7. Paradoxes of Panic 8. Constructing the Irrational Woman 9. Socializing Emotion 10.Socializing Anxiety 11.Therapeutic Insights Epilogue: Flying Notes References Acknowledgments Index

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Details

  • NCID
    BA42209627
  • ISBN
    • 0674165497
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge, Mass. ; London
  • Pages/Volumes
    xi, 244 p.
  • Size
    23cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
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