GGR327H1 Lecture Notes - Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal, Agoraphobia, Town Square
Document Summary
Fear of open places or fear of marketplace. Agora (greek) = public places of assembly. Coined in 1871 by dr. carl westphal. Dates back to industrial capitalism and growing separation of public and private and victorian cult of domesticity. Emerges as a major disease in 1950. Over 85 percent are female, mostly white, and middle class. Mostly in the 19th century, they have unconscious guilt and fear once they enter the social space. Freud: agoraphobia due to repressed unconscious fears masquerading as spatial fear: they are unconscious about the temptation on the street and they are mostly stay in the indoor household that going out is contracting to sexual activities. Streets threatening to those, like middle class women, who led a sheltered life because they held the possibility of temptation, sexual fulfillment, escape. It is all about race and class, gender and location. Agoraphobe unconscious guilt, felt need for restraining walls of house.
