Election stress ‘creates self-doubt’
No, it’s not a psychological profile of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party but a set of psychological symptoms resulting from stress and common to all election candidates at some point during their campaign, says Labour Party Cork North Central candidate, John Gilroy.
Cllr Gilroy, a psychiatric nurse by profession, has speculated online that his party’s finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton and Fianna Fáil’s Conor Lenihan, may have been suffering from such a set of symptoms when they found themselves in the Tonight with Vincent Brown studios recently.
He described the TDs as “imploding in front of the TV cameras” having walked into a “trap deliberately set by the host”.
As part of his general election campaign, the Glanmire man and psychiatric nurse of 27 years, has taken to recording a rather unique online audio diary — where he gets interviewed by Paul O’Mahony, a supporter and social media fan.
In the past week, he set about analysing the “psychology of politicians under pressure”.
“Number one symptom is paranoia, everyone is out to get you. Number two is any little self doubt that you’ve ever had in your entire life is magnified by 500 points during a campaign, and number three is a complete inability to see where you will get a single vote.
“For instance, last week you’ll say this campaign is going fantastic and then today suddenly, I will question if I will get a single vote anywhere. Nothing in the world will have changed but my thinking will have changed and it’s part of the political pressure that we’re in. It influences everyone and feeds into a general feeling of being overwhelmed,“ he said. In the same audio blog, the Labour Party candidate bemoans the lack of passion in Irish politics.
“If you vocalise with passion, the commentariat will say you’re losing it. The American, French and British politicians speak with absolute passion” but, he says, “Irish politics seem to be passionless” and dominated “by rationale and logic to the point of paralysis”.
Mr Gilroy also complained about Vincent Browne’s treatment of his party colleague Joan Burton: “He wouldn’t have treated another male politician in the same way.”
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