(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-04 11:06

Millions of people who are petrified of their jobs and 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, according to a Berlin psychiatrist.

These people are not lazy. They are laborophobics.

Laborophobia is an irrational fear of work. Work-related phobia is an anxiety disorder which is unique because it can occur in people who do not suffer from general anxiety disorders, says Dr Michael Linden, head of the psychiatric clinic at Berlin's Freie University.

In a paper delivered to the World Congress on Psychosomatic Medicine, in Quebec, Canada, Linden says: "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."

He says workers who frequently call in sick or who complain of migraine stemming from their workload could in fact be laborophobics.

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

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 Professor 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.