ERGOPHOBIA (FEAR OF WORK): SYMPTOMS, CAUSES - ARTE - 2024

The ergofobia or phobia work is a kind of specific phobia characterized by experimentation and irrational fear of excessive work or work activities. People who suffer from this psychopathology experience very high feelings of anxiety when they go to work and, often, the fear they experience at that time prevents them from going to work.

The consequences of this disorder are usually dire for the person, since it is totally incapable of performing adequately at work. Likewise, in many cases the disorder ends up causing a total abandonment of work activities.

However, today ergophobia is a well-known pathology and has interventions that can be very useful to overcome the fear of work.

Characteristics of ergophobia

Ergophobia is a specific type of phobia, an anxiety disorder that is defined through the experience of a phobic fear of work.

Its characteristics are very similar to those of the other types of specific phobia, such as the phobia of spiders or the phobia of blood. The only element that distinguishes these disorders is the feared element, which in ergophobia is work.

People who suffer from this alteration suffer a high limitation in the development of their work environment. Their fear of doing work activities is so high that it completely limits their performance.

Ergophobia is considered a much more serious and disabling psychopathology than other types of specific phobias due to the qualities and consequences of avoiding the feared stimulus, work.

In fact, ergophobia is also considered a social anxiety disorder, however, fear and anxiety only manifest in those social situations related to work.

Fear of work

The main characteristics that define the phobic fear of work related to ergophobia are the following:

Excessive

In the workplace you can experience feelings of fear or anxiety of varying degrees. However, these tend to have a certain relationship with the specific demands or situations with which the worker is in contact.

In ergophobia, the person experiences a fear of totally excessive work. This is much larger than you might expect and cannot be classified as "normal."

Irrational

The fear of ergophobia is so high and is excessive with respect to the real demands of the situation mainly because it is irrational.

That is, the person with ergophobia has a fear that is not congruent. She herself is able to detect the irrationality of her fear and is aware that it is not necessary to fear work so intensely.

Uncontrollable

Despite the fact that the individual with ergophobia is aware that their fear of work is irrational, they cannot avoid it, mainly because the fear they experience is also uncontrollable.

The person is totally unable to control his feelings of fear. These appear automatically and completely take over the mind of the individual.

Persistent

The fear of work can increase in certain moments of tension, instability or demand. However, the fear of ergophobia is permanently present, regardless of the external factors that can be detected in the workplace.

The fear of ergophobia does not respond to specific stages or moments, but it always appears invariably.

Leads to avoidance

Finally, to be able to speak of ergophobia, fear of work must be so high that it must lead the person to avoid the workplace.

The individual with ergophobia will make every effort to avoid going to work, which in several cases may cause the definitive abandonment of the job.

Symptoms

The symptomatology of ergophobia is characterized by being mainly anxious. In other words, excessive and irrational fear of work implies the generation of manifestations of high anxiety.

Symptoms of anxiety appear whenever the person is exposed to their feared element; when you go to the workplace. A person with ergophobia is totally unable to go to work without experiencing heightened feelings of anxiety.

Likewise, anxious manifestations and feelings of nervousness can appear even when the individual is not at work. The simple fact of thinking about the work environment or that you should go to work are elements that can be enough to trigger the anxious response.

Specifically, the anxiety symptoms of the disorder can be divided into three different types: physical symptoms, cognitive symptoms, and behavioral symptoms.

Physical symptoms

The first manifestations that a person with ergophobia experiences when they go to work have to do with a series of modifications in the functioning of their body.

The fear and tension caused by going to work cause the activity of the brain's autonomic nervous system to increase, a fact that translates into a series of physical manifestations.

A person with ergophobia may experience any of the following manifestations when they go to work:

1. Increased heart rate, tachycardia or palpitations.
2. Increased respiratory rate or feeling of suffocation.
3. Increased muscle tension, headache, or stomach pain.
4. Increased body sweating.
5. Increased pupillary dilation.
6. Experiencing nausea, dizziness, or vomiting.
7. Feeling of unreality or fainting.

Cognitive symptoms

The physical manifestations of anxiety do not appear in isolation, but are expressed in a way that is closely related to a series of thoughts about work.

Thoughts about the workplace are always highly negative and distressing, a fact that motivates an increase in the subject's state of anxiety.

The catastrophic thoughts both about work and personal capacities to cope with it, feed back with physical sensations and generate a loop that increases the state of nervousness and anxiety more and more.

Behavioral symptoms

Finally, ergophobia is characterized by affecting the behavior of the individual. Generally, the alteration usually generates two main behaviors: avoidance and escape.

Avoidance is the most typical behavioral symptom of ergophobia and is defined as a series of behaviors that the individual engages in to avoid going to work.

The escape is the behavior that is carried out when the person with ergophobia is at their job and the discomfort and anxiety that they experience at those moments forces them to leave work.

Causes

Ergophobia is a disorder that has a wide variety of causes. In fact, the association of several factors is the element that gives rise to the appearance of psychopathology.

The factors that seem to play a more important role in the etiology of ergophobia are:

1. Experience of negative or traumatic episodes related to work.
2. Fear of rejection
3. Anxious personality traits.
4. Genetic factors.
5. Depressive disorders

Treatment

The most effective treatment for ergophobia is the type of psychotherapy known as cognitive behavioral treatment. In this treatment, strategies and tools are provided to the person that allow them to gradually expose themselves to their feared stimuli.

The exposure itself makes the subject get used to work and little by little he overcomes his irrational fear.

In some cases, anxiolytic drugs may also be given to prevent the person from having to leave their job while psychotherapy lasts.

References

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3. Curtis G, Magee W, Eaton W, et al. Specific fears and phobias: epidemiology and classification. Br J Psychiat 1998; 173: 212–217.
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