Well, we've seen so far that work plays a special role in people's lives as it is a means of financial subsistence. However, as we learned in the previous class, it also has an important symbolic and affective function being a source of pleasure or suffering directly impacting mental health But if work has such an important and central function in people's lives, why is it so common for us to hear phrases like "We're all sick here" or "I come home very nervous, there's a lot of pressure and demand at work" or even "There are a lot of sick people here, a lot of people on leave because of anxiety and depression? " To answer this question, we need to bear in mind two premises.
First, in work-related mental suffering, it is the worker's subjectivity that is affected. Second, work is not a priori negative. Well, we talked about subjectivity.
Subjectivity is a term that we use to talk about our ways of being, feeling, and acting, which are built over time, according to our individual experiences. And among these experiences, that we undergo throughout our lives, are management practices and work organization. A large part of our time is spent working.
So, all these experiences that we have at work, shape and interfere with our subjectivity, ways of being, and acting. And what are these management and work organization practices to which we are exposed and immersed? A lot of competitiveness, like business ethics.
We are going to highlight here four factors that will build ways of being and interfere quite directly with the subjectivity of workers, which are, first, the spread of fear, insecurity and uncertainty about the future, individualism and the culture of excellence. Think about your work, in the workplace where you work, the work you do, and your tasks. Are these factors present in your work?
And then we need to rescue some of the transformations that the world of work has suffered. Some of them you have already seen throughout module three, but some we will review here. Such as the reduction of jobs, outsourcing, the precariousness of work contracts and management practices marked by these four factors that we have just seen.
The spread of fear, the culture of excellence, and pressure for productivity. This all generates a very strong context of individualism at work and directly impacts the subjectivity of workers, which is our way of being, acting and being in the world. Here you will be able to follow a little of the dynamics of the production of suffering and illness at work.
First, we have a configuration of work organization and management practices, which we have already seen some of these characteristics that are present, such as the culture of fear, and insecurity about the future. Later we will see that, in this context, the worker will undergo some experiences in this work context, and build, in light of this, a way of being based on this fear, insecurity, individualism, and the culture of excellence. And the worker will develop a way to act in this context of fear and insecurity.
This will generate wear and tear on the worker. And if we don't have a framework in which this wear is minimized, if this condition persists and intensifies, we have a case of psychic suffering. If even so, we have the persistence and intensification of this condition, and do not intervene at this moment of psychic suffering, we will have a case of mental illness.
In addition to all these factors that we have already seen, which produce suffering and illness, we also need to point out here that precarious work relationships, job instability, partial and temporary contracts, subcontracting and also psychological violence, and moral harassment act as a structuring part of these management models and will directly affect the mental health and psyche of workers. And the impact that this causes can culminate in a wide variety of possibilities for the development of certain pathologies. From psychosomatic conditions to a specific mental disorder.
So, in order to review the dynamics of illness, suffering, and work-related mental illness, you can also follow this model that is available to you. We will then have a condition of mental exhaustion that will be associated with everything from macro-social factors, such as unemployment and inflation, to micro-social factors; the way that work is organized within the workplace. If we don't have an interference, an adequate measure in this context of mental exhaustion, and this condition persists, we have a state of mental suffering.
And if again we don't intervene, and don't guarantee adequate measures to intervene in mental suffering, we will have a mental suffering condition. It is important to emphasize that in all these moments, we need to think about appropriate measures, during the period of exhaustion, mental suffering, and mental illness. In the next class, we'll look at some of the most common diagnoses of work-related mental disorders.
Until then!
