Shrinks may not have helped (“At the last count I have seen: ten psychiatrists, a score of counsellors, two dozen therapists”) but imaginative literature amplifies his insights: Proust, Kafka, Ford Madox Ford, Anne Tyler, Sue Townsend, Helen Dunmore and many more. Two American writers are of particular interest to him: Emily Dickinson (the words “house” and “home” appear in 210 of her poems) and the novelist Shirley Jackson.
There’s a chapter on Sigmund Freud and honourable mention of Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal, a pioneering specialist in the field. It is only recently that agoraphobia has been recognised as a predominantly female complaint. Two thirds of Caveney’s support group are women. With props to stabilise their instability – walking sticks, headphones, gloves, sunglasses, bags, dogs and wheelchairs – they come over sympathetically.
