Posted By Adrian Woon Hello All I am looking for some advice. Would phobias, eg: Claustrophobia - fear of confined space, Acrophobia - fear of height etc be viewed as a psychological / psychosocial hazard as is stress. For the individual who has a phobia, that fear is very real, and therefore, would not a risk assessment and method statement be drawn up for activities where this could be an issue.

Posted By bereznikov Good answer from Richard. I think the focus should be 'Capability', definitely. bereznikov

Posted By naveen duggal Hi,very interesting point to ponder... Human factor is very important. Some of the accidents are caused due to human error. Pobias is one of them. It is upto the duty officer, safety officer or Supervisor or responsible body (team)to ascertain the state of mind of the person being given that specific task /duty .His interest,attitude, commitment in following.understanding and performing work/task safely Communication skills, sound mental state of mind, good normal health to carry out the duty satisfactorily. That is why , in many organistion TRADE TEST, COMPETENCY TEST OR CAPABILITY tests or formal Team-briefing or team meetings .are conducted prior to commencment of actual work(esp Space research, Oil & Gas companies, AIRLINES or shipping vessels or Steel companies, Electrical power station/ plants or production ,manufacturer, etc) The purpose is to examine the confidence, safety awareness,apptitude of the person involved in doing the job Yes most of the normal task/job done with various RA consider the person doing the work/task is normal without fear or Phobias. Generally it is common to consider factors like the Place (Location) where work is to be done, the machinery involved in getting the work done,environment and A safe work place. Specific risky jobs/Tasks must consider the Human factor evaluating their RA & method statements. Best regards, Naveen Duggal

Posted By graeme12345 And did the employee at interview stage make it known to the prospective employer of their condition, so employers can weedle out the possible future claimants

Posted By Adrian Woon My thanks to all who have responded to my query. Regards, Adrian

Posted By clairel Am I the only one that thinks that (although yes phobias are a stress- I have a few phobias myself) any person in an employment situation should not be doing a task that they are not inherently suited to? If you don't like heights don't be a scaffolder. If you don't like confined spaces don't clean tanks. If you don't like fire don't be a fire fighter. Seems common sense to me. Am I missing something because to me it doesn't seem like the responsibility of the employer if an employee has picked a career they are unsuited to (but the employer has been an idiot not to pick it up in the interview stage). I have a contract that describes what job I am required to do, if I cannot do that job anymore (say I get a phobia of clients ;-)) that is my problem and I will have to change career. I can't expect my boss to change the nature of the job. What am I missing? Or am I just uncaring?

Posted By clairel Hey, I had to look that one up!!! I still think it is the problemof the employee if there is an aspect of their job that they are fearful of. Most of us have had to overcome the fear of (eg, making a presentation) but you just have to do it if that's what the job demands. My husband is nigh on throwing up befor such things but he knows it's a requirement of his job and so he just gets on with it. Nowadays we all seem so obsessed with wrapping poeple in cotton wool. Standing up to and confronting your fears head on is actualy good for you. It gives confidence to conquor something that you are scared of. By all means we have to show empathy but we also have live in the real world. Challenge is good.

Posted By Richard Altoft Nelson suffered from seasickness all his life.

Posted By AMelrose While it's unlikely, there may be some people who apply for a job not realising the have a phobia until presented with a particular task or they have a very mild case but encounter something that "tips" them over the edge later on...sort of post traumatic stress disorder. Example using Kings Cross Fire. Suppose someone was apprehensive of stepping onto an escalator. Nothing serious, just butterflies and takes a few seconds to step on. Then...day of Kings Cross Fire was walking up the stairway only a few minutes before the blaze. Gets out the building OK but witnessed the fire etc and develops an even bigger phobia about stepping onto escalators. Goes out of her way to avoid them...can't even look at photo's of them. Now...what if she was an architect and designed shopping centres? Phobia didn't impact on her ability to do her job when she applied for the position. Although she didn't "like" escalators could do her job without any problems but phobia now reached point where it is impacting on her ability to do her job. While the above scenario is completely fictional, there are bound to be a few individuals with very mild phobias who experience some form of trauma (not necessarily large either) that would make their phobia worse. This could then impact on their work... just a thought.

Posted By Chris Packham Actually I agree with the Kings Cross example. This can happen in many ways. Psychosomatic problems can actually cause physical conditions. We had a case of a care home worker who suffered an anaphylactic shock - but to what we will never know. She was told that this could have been a latex allergy. In fact, she is not allergic to latex but now believes she is. She can handle latex perfectly happily so long as she does not realise this is what she is doing. If she handles plastic but thinks it is latex she will start to develop anaphylaxis. It goes by the name of undifferentiated idiopathic somatoform anaphylaxis (Try saying that after a few beers!) Many of these phobias can be dealt with. As I have already posted, there has just been considerable discussion on this topic, with examples of what can be achieved, on the occupational health nursing forum. So my first approach with anyone with this type of phobia problem would be to speak to a specialist about using something such as NLP, CBT or EMDR to see if this can help resolve the phobia. Chris

Posted By AMelrose Raymond - no, just trying to add my view by giving an example but sorry I bothered...

Posted By graeme12345 that's the point Eddie, we should not be wasting time by addressing "silliness"