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Sydney Morning Herald

Monday January 12, 2009

Scott Goodings

The House Of Agoraphobics

Crime and Investigation, 1.30pm

In a previous documentary (The House Of Obsessive Compulsives) Professor Paul Salkovskis, clinical director of anxiety disorders and trauma at London's Institute of Psychiatry, made reasonable progress with three sufferers. They had moved into a share house for nine days in an attempt to cure their problems. Now his team has embarked on a 14-day experimental treatment plan with three agoraphobics. Su is a single mum who cannot leave the house to walk her daughter to school. Archana is a doctor whose fear of travelling on motorways is threatening her marriage and impending motherhood. Simon lives in his parents' flat and has not left his neighbourhood in five years. It takes intensive therapy and a huge leap of faith on the patients' part to even enter the share house. Salkovskis tries a group outing on public transport and then a collective stroll across a bridge. Buoyed by some success, he hits the trio with their next, perhaps overwhelming, task. He increases the pressure and will submit them to foreign crowds and a strange place they cannot escape. They will be taking a 13-hour flight to spend a week in Tokyo. This is particularly tough for Archana, who found a recent 20-minute boat trip intolerable. The aim for the trio is self-reliance and to be able to go anywhere without feeling anxious.

Leverage

FOX8, 9.30pm

Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) joins the stampede of Hollywood film stars switching to television and follows in the footsteps of his late father, Jim (Ellery Queen). Hutton is an insurance investigator swindled out of a payout by his employer. There are shades of the British series Hustle as he teams up with a bunch of crims and targets dodgy multinationals.

Tim Gunn's Guide To Style

Arena, 9.30pm

This is serious intervention. The intention is to tap into the fashion core until it's a gushing geyser. Tim Gunn (Project Runway) looks like a cross between Carson Kressley and the computer-generated character Max Headroom. With sidekick Gretta Monahan, he sets out to give fashion-challenged simpletons a makeover. The rule is that a woman's wardrobe should contain only 10 essential items. The old wardrobe is thrown away except for the odd item fashion expert Gretta retrieves. It's then generally hacked away to within an inch of its life.

© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

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