In their essay, Christophe André, Patrick Légeron and Antoine Pelissolo show how much the fear of the gaze and judgment of others can make employees suffer daily, pushing them to scuttle their careers.
by François Desnoyers
The book. “Imagine that by entering this room, you suddenly realize that you are naked. (…) This is what live, with more or less intensity it is true, anxious and social phobics.” Here is A few years, the president of the American association of anxiety disorders had seized, with these words, the assistance of a World Congress of Psychiatry. And put their finger on the intense pain that people affected by social anxiety may feel, without their entourage necessarily remarks.
In fact, this fear of the gaze and the judgment of others which is declined in stage fright, shyness or social phobia, can heavily handicap those who undergo it. In extreme cases, it invades all the compartments of a life where excessive efforts are deployed to avoid contact.
This social anxiety is the object of an essay led by three psychiatrists, Christophe André, Patrick Légeron and Antoine Pelissolo, the new fear of others (Odile Jacob), who explore his demonstrations, his springs, but also the means to free it (drugs, psychotherapy). In doing so, they highlight how much this fear of others can weigh on the professional life of the people concerned.
The anxiety of expressing themselves in a meeting, to assert yourself and to impose your views on providers or even the apprehension of informal exchanges around the coffee machine … This fear of others can manifest itself in Multiple occasions, until influencing the career choices of affected people. Thus, “58 % of employees say they are apprehending to occupy a management position for fear of having to speak in public”, explain the authors. Enough to push some employees to decline a promotion.
Double tracing use
Other professionals have felt the need to adapt their careers: “Social phobic doctors thus opt for a specialty that does not force them to discuss with their patients, such as anesthesia or radiology”, indicate the authors , also quoting the case of this “history teacher who ends up giving up his job to work as a night vigil in a large factory, the only way not to make yourself sick daily by facing students, parents and colleagues”.
The time does not facilitate things for the social anxious. If technologies can sometimes constitute a refuge, their use is double -edged, making physical interactions more rare … and more scary. Many employees also had difficulty resuming a professional face -to -face activity after periods of confinement, “having lost the habit of direct confrontations and speaking during real meetings”.
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