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Three-hour talk that ended a lifetime of despair ...


"I suppose it started in 1971. I went over on my ankle down a kerb, but not being one for hospitals I walked on it for a few days. It got worse and worse so I eventually went to the hospital and was told I'd broken it.

"I knew I was different after that. I thought I was going peculiar so I went to the doctors and was told I had agoraphobia."

The common perception of agoraphobia is of sufferers never setting foot out of their front doors. In severe cases time literally stands still for those who haven't ventured out for years. Julie was able to go out, she just couldn't go alone. She was prescribed valium which she took for a year "but it was like I was in a different world so I went back to the doctors and asked to be taken off it," she says.

Often the anxiety of leaving home was such she'd suffer tremendous panic attacks and many journeys were abandoned through her desperation to get back home. Holding the car keys, even if she wasn't driving, was a comfort and also an assurance of a quick escape. And that's how Julie ended up living her life.

"I could go out as long as I was with somebody and I had a means to get home quickly," says Julie. "And holding those car keys in my hand meant I could get back to a safe place."

Fortunately she and her husband worked together so when he went to see clients she'd sit in the car for hours, simply because she didn't want to be in the office alone. She couldn't go to the post box unaccompanied, even though it was stone's throw away from her home, and weekly supermarket trips were traumatic because of her fear of crowds, another symptom of agoraphobia.

"I couldn't stand in a queue so I'd have to wait by the entrance while my husband was in the queue," says Julie.

Her turning point came in 1998 when she met John Ellis, a qualified master of neurolinguistics, who uses the Time Line Therapy ^TM procedure he learned during a nine-day self-development course in Hawaii to help people with phobias.

Doing the course enabled John to overcome great mind challenges like firewalking, tramping 25ft over red hot burning embers barefoot, without a mark on his feet. It also made John realise how the mind is capable of controlling the body, something he was keen to explore.

Eventually he set up his own practice, confident the Time Line Therapy ^TM technique could help sufferers overcome their phobias, and he's proved it.

Some of the more unusual cases he's dealt with include helping Chris Madeley overcome the phobia which kept her out of the dentist's chair for 12 years. Since seeing John she's now making regular dental appointments. So confident was John that he could help Julie, he handed her a leaflet about agoraphobia and left it up to her.

"He gave me a leaflet and I suppose I knew I had a problem, I just didn't know so many other people had it," says Julie.

Like all John's clients, Julie had to show her commitment to want to change which she did by walking through his door. "The first words she said to me when she came in were you don't know what you're putting me through to come here," recalls John. "And that's one of the keys. It was essential for Julie to have the determination to come and see me because I knew how difficult it would be for her to come and I knew she wanted to make a change."

"But," says Julie, "making that change was frightening because I didn't think I could change after all that time."

John explains that because the procedure involves the unconscious mind, it doesn't really matter how long the client has been suffering. "It doesn't matter whether some-body has had the problem for 12 months or 40 years because the structure of the problem in the unconscious mind is the same."

The procedure basically allows clients to release their phobic reactions from memories of past events. Within three hours of talking to John and doing some mental exercises, all part of the Time Line Therapy ^TM procedure, the phobia Julie had battled for 20 years disappeared. But even she admits to being sceptical at first.

"I just thought we'll see. There seemed to be nothing tangible. All John did was talk to me and you can't believe it's going to do any good because you feel there should be something to touch to make it right."

Six years later and she's never looked back. She thinks nothing of going shopping on her own and she and her husband are now looking forward to trips and holidays they'd missed out on. "It has changed my life, so much so I keep thinking it's going to wear off and that life can't be like this!"

For further information ring (01535) 272284.