Ergophobia Causes and characteristics of fear of work

1179
Egbert Haynes
Ergophobia Causes and characteristics of fear of work

All of us have ever felt the temptation not to go to work, not wanting to go, to stay at home ... and in most people this situation has not passed from there.

At most some of the others have called their doctor to request discharge, or some kind of paid leave or one of the so-called "own business days" has been requested..

However, there are people who want to stay home every day, and it is not out of laziness but out of phobia. These people suffer from "Ergophobia" or fear of their workplace. But why do they suffer from it? Let's see it next

What is ergophobia?

Ergophobia is a type of phobia that as its name indicates (ergon is work in Greek and phobos fear) consists of a irrational and uncontrolled fear to your workplace.

This fear, as you can imagine, is very disabling since it does not allow you to work or earn a living.

Symptoms of Ergophobia

The most common symptoms experienced by people suffering from Ergophobia are:

  1. Increased heart rate when thinking about the workplace.
  2. Feeling of suffocation
  3. Excessive sweating
  4. Dry mouth
  5. Panic attacks
  6. Stomach ache
  7. Headache
  8. Muscle tension
  9. Feeling of unreality
  10. Anguish
  11. Concentration difficulties
  12. Manifestation of avoidance behaviors with work

As we can see, these symptoms do not differ excessively from the rest of phobic disorders..

In addition, people who suffer from Ergophobia suffer from misunderstanding by those around them, since they may think that they are "lazy" who do not want to work and that they only want to live on a "little pay", when they are really sick and need medical-psychological care to overcome your problem.

What are the causes of the development of ergophobia?

Although the causes of the onset of this phobia can be very varied, it mostly begins after having suffered a traumatic experience at work, which causes the person to turn their workplace into a hostile place that they do not want to go to because of classical conditioning. fear of something bad happening to him.

As traumatic experiences we can define possible attacks, fires, catastrophes ... but also having suffered mobbing or that the person in question has anxiogenic personality traits.

The classical conditioning that can cause ergophobia is a very simple association mechanism that was discovered by the Nobel Prize in Physiology Ivan Pavlov.

The mechanism, which is one of the basic principles of learning, consists of associating a stimulus (initially neutral, such as a workplace) with an event (in this case traumatic) based on the occurrence of these followed on some occasions. This causes the stimulus that was initially neutral to become traumatic..

Treatment for work phobia

Regarding the treatment of Ergophobia, it does not differ much from the treatment applied to other pathologies. It is necessary for the person who suffers from it to admit that they have it, that it is a problem for them and that they want to overcome it.

But this is not always the case, and many subjects with Ergophobia do not recognize that this is a problem for them and do not seek help, and if these people receive it, they do not take advantage of it correctly. Therefore, it is essential as a first step to recognize the problem.

These disorders are usually treated and respond quite well to cognitive-behavioral techniques as gradual exposure with response prevention techniques in work settings

This exhibition can be combined with virtual simulations of work environments. Additionally, the practice of mindfulness can help a lot to relax the person and maintain a state of relaxation in the body when facing these phobic stimuli. In addition, in some extreme cases it is accompanied by drugs prescribed by the doctor.

Therefore, as we have seen, Ergophobia is a psychological pathology that can be quite disabling for the person due to the inability to work that it causes..

For this reason, favoring as much as possible that she can continue working by teleworking without going to her position in person, can be very comforting for her while she recovers from this disorder. Likewise, understanding from their closest circle is also very important for the person to begin to recover..


Yet No Comments