Workplace Phobia - Socio-medical Meaning

Socio-medical Meaning

Workplace phobia is a complex clinical phenomenon with an own clinical value, with specific aetiology factors and specific requirements for therapy. This is due to the special characteristics of the anxiety-provoking stiumus:

• The workplace is not a simple stimulus like a spider or a television. In contrast, we find it to be a very complex stimulus containing both situative as well as interactional elements.
• Avoiding the workplace regularly means negative consequences for the biographic development of the concerned person (long-term sick leave, loss of the workplace, endangerment of work ability and early retirement)
• Avoiding the workplace may lead to chronification of the primary disorder. Cognition of own insufficiency, and fantasies about possible endangerments manifest the dysfunctional ideas the patient has developed while staying away from work.
• In contrast to the street or public transit, the workplace cannot be entered for exposition anonymously and at any time. Therapeutical exposition trials at a workplace are therefore extremely resricted.