• April 25, 2024

It has all happened to us all. In the case of men, it occurs many times when two individuals urinate side by side; in ours, it can happen when the door of the next bathroom is closed and another bladder sits to empty its contents. Women are more affected by what we hear, by men, by what they see.

What we are talking about is paruresis or shy bladder syndrome, a condition scientifically studied since the seventies. Now, a new study reveals that 14% of the population has problems urinating in the presence of others.

What does it consist of?

Paruresis is the difficulty of urinating in public restrooms or places where there are other people in front. The paruretic is aware that he suffers an irrational fear of feeling or imagining that others may see or hear him while evacuating.

It is a real limitation to those who suffer from it, prevented from realizing a natural fact of the organism that can lead to serious physical and mental problems.

Both components (physical and psychic) ​​walk hand in hand at the origin of paruresis, consisting of sphincter tension at the time of urination due to a series of psychic factors, such as anxiety or a bad past experience that could lead to in a trauma.

Like any disorder, it can manifest itself to a greater or lesser extent, going from a small difficulty surmountable with relaxation techniques, to a serious impediment that makes it impossible to empty the bladder.

A taboo problem for psychology

In a recent interview, Dr. Antonio Prunas, a researcher at the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, probably the number one expert on the subject, pointed out that when he started studying the syndrome he was surprised by the large number of people who suffered from it. :

I was extremely impressed by the discomfort of these patients, as well as the fact that they felt abandoned and misunderstood by mental health professionals. "

As is often the case with most psychiatric disorders, the causes of shyness of the bladder are not well understood. According to Prunas, there are different factors "of biological, psychological and social risk interacting in the etiology of the disorder.

Therefore, we can assume that people who develop paruresis are probably characterized by some biological vulnerability that interacts with other factors, both the psychology of the individual and the social environment. "

It can be associated with a childhood or youth trauma

For some scholars, some form of bullying in childhood or adolescence may be the cause of this social anxiety disorder.

One in three people who suffered from paruresis identified a specific traumatic event in their childhood related to the use of toilets that they consider the beginning of their disorder, "says Dr. Steven Soifer, member of the International Association of Paruresis. and a guru in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of the syndrome.

Author of the book Timothy Bladder Syndrome: Your Step by Step Guide to Overcoming Paruresis, Soifer suffered from paruresis since adolescence. In his opinion, "the average age of the onset is puberty, about twelve or thirteen years old".

When not finding an adequate treatment he developed a method based on cognitive-behavioral techniques that, he says, works in 80-90% of cases.

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