Essay-writing phobia in undergraduates

Abstract

In view of the understandably cynical reaction which the above title is likely to evoke in most university teachers, it should immediately be pointed out that it is meant not as a euphemism for student laziness, but quite literally, to denote a fear of preparing written work, which is highly disabling, and can therefore endanger the academic career of able and intelligent undergraduates whose performance is otherwise satisfactory and well-regarded by staff. The problem should be differentiated from two others, possibly related, but nevertheless distinct. The first is ‘scriptophobia’ (Biran, Augusto and Wilson, 1981) or ‘writing phobia’ (Johnson, Shenoy and Gilmore, 1982), which is an irrational fear of writing in front of another person. Although an underlying fear of shame before someone else may be common to essay-writing phobia and scriptophobia, the presenting problem is different. In the former it is concerned with result of academic work expressed in writing (in the two cases seen, it is perfectly conceivable that the fear would have been just as disabling if the essays had been typed or produced on a word processor); in the latter, with the physical act of writing. The second is ‘writer's block’ [cf., for example, Nurnberger and Zimmerman (1970), Harris (1974). Passman (1976) and Boice (1982, 1983a, b)]. The distinction here is that whereas essay-writing phobia appears to be clearly phobic in character, and occurs in unpracticed writers, with whom the clinical problem is to start them writing; fear, on the other hand, is not reported to be an essential, or even a usual, feature of writer's block, which occurs in professionals with sometimes extensive writing experience, with whom the clinical problem is to maintain a writing schedule.