Taking a Sickey

It is likely there is not one among us who didn’t feign a stomach bug or attack of influenza to get out of going to school back in the day. Those old tricks like putting the thermometer on the hot water bottle and rubbing soap on your chest used to work a treat when the fear of an math test or sports day got the better of us. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

How glad we all were when we grew up and never had to face choir practice or spelling bees again. Maturity brought this and other rewards. School was behind us and we could joyfully enter the world of work -- free of those gut-wrenching pangs that had us making fake vomit from custard and baked beans.

At least it was a relief for some. According to a Berlin psychiatrist, not all of us got over the fear. Some out there swapped the angst for school for the angst for work. These people, says Michael Linden, head of the psychiatric clinic at Berlin's Freie University, are laborophobics.

Linden believes that the millions of people who are petrified of their jobs, terrified by their co-workers and who have nightmares about work may be suffering from a genuine medical disorder which doctors have overlooked until now. Far from being work-shy layabouts, these people could be suffering from an irrational fear of work.

What makes laborophobia a genuine work-related phobia rather than just an excuse? Well, Linden believes that it can occur in people who do not suffer from general anxiety disorders, making it unique in the field of phobias.

Serious symptoms derived from a fear of work

And far from eating specially constructed spicy dishes to bring on diarrhea, laborophobics have very real symptoms which would be enough to get you a whole year off school.

"Like other forms of anxiety, job anxieties can present in the form of panic, hypochondriac fears, work-related worrying, post-traumatic stress, or work-related social anxieties," Linden wrote in a paper on the phobia.

He says that workers who frequently call in sick or who complain of migraines stemming from their workload could in fact be laborophobic.

"Anxiety can lead to avoidance. Job anxiety can therefore be one explanation for sick leave, work absenteeism or early retirement," he says.

Paranoia strikes!

Such people can also have a paranoid fear that they are being mobbed by co-workers or that their boss is intentionally burdening them with inhuman workloads and impossible deadlines.

They resort to alcohol or medication or seeking sick leave or early retirement.

"Job anxieties, therefore, must be considered expensive problems," warns Linden, who is one of Germany's leading experts in chronic depression, phobias and psychosomatic rehabilitation treatments.

He estimates that as many as half of all workers on long-term sick leave may in fact show signs and symptoms of work-related anxiety.

The others might just be very good at puking on demand.