Anne (not her real name), from south Dublin, has had agoraphobia for 27 years. She is 52 years old, married with four children, the youngest of whom is 14, and while she can go out, drive a car, even go on holidays, she will not leave the house on her own.
Anne's first panic attack was a bolt from the blue. "I was happily married, our first child was three, everything was perfect and then I got a panic attack."
After that, she started to avoid places and situations where she felt anxious.
"I'd always been an anxious person, even as a child, even though there was nothing to worry about. Someone said to me once 'don't worry about the what ifs, say so what,' but that's not so easy.
"When you have a panic attack, you think you're going to die, you think you're going to have a heart attack."
Anne's anxiety worsened to the extent that she couldn't do anything on her own. She told her mother who listened and understood but managed to conceal her problem from her husband for three years.
"I was very devious. I got out of things - I would make excuses not to go somewhere. I didn't know what to say to him. I thought I was going mad. I was afraid to say it as if voicing it would make it real."
So Anne managed to live with her agoraphobia, telling only a few friends. Her GP prescribed her anti-depressants.
Then one day Anne got a phone call from a friend who told her to listen in to the Derek Davis show and she heard a mention of the Homelink course at Roslyn Park College.
She phoned up the college and, after meeting Philip Keogh, was accepted on the course. Now after eight months on the course, she is learning to manage her anxiety and deal with her panic attacks, and is slowly starting to build up her confidence again.
"It has given me a different way of thinking, a more positive way of thinking. The support sessions are great because you can talk to someone who understands," she says.
"Homelink sets you small goals for the smallest things and you feel you have achieved something every day.
"Then you talk to people on the blackboard [the programme's internet discussion board]. It has been a godsend.
"I still have niggling, anxious feelings but I'm able to control it. I could have been 10 times worse; there are some people who can't step outside their bedrooms.
"I still have to have someone there. At 52, to have to go out with your mother... but I'm getting stronger. I just want to be me."
Niamh Kavanagh