Mental Health and Health Disorders
.According to the World Health Organization (1946): "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and does not consist merely of an absence of disease or infirmity." Regarding mental health, however, WHO (2001) argues that: "Mental health can be understood as a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, is able to cope with the normal stresses of life, is able to work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to the community in which he or she lives."
Mental health is a state of well-being characterized by positive feelings, rewarding interpersonal relationships, and the ability to cope with situations. Mental health affects the way people think, communicate, learn and grow. Perceptions of well-being strengthen resilience and self-esteem, which are the ingredients for positive participation in the community, society, professional life, and relationships with others.
Mental health problems, unlike actual mental illness, are very common in the population and often occur during periods of high stress or following traumatic events. For example, bereavement symptoms lasting less than two months do not qualify as mental disorders. Mental health promotion, prevention and treatment measures can dramatically reduce the risk of developing a mental illness.
According to WHO, nearly half of the population will suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their lives. Stress, Mobbing, Straining, Burn Out, Stalking, are five terms that are coming into daily life overwhelmingly and are often the cause of the onset of health problems.
Stress
Stress is generated due to events that procure emotion/change/decision.The stress response is the set of adaptations that our body puts in place to cope with the stressful event. We distinguish two types of stress:
- Eustress, when the event that challenges us is of short duration the body responds with the right amount of adrenaline, without altering the body's homeostasis.
- Distress, when the stressful event goes on for long periods of time taking on the character of chronicity.
In addition, it should be specified that the response to stress is subjective: some people tolerate it without any problems, while others do not tolerate the slightest amount of it. It is appropriate, therefore, for each individual to learn to manage his or her energy according to the commitments to be fulfilled.
Work Stress
Work-related stress, on the other hand, occurs when the demands of the work environment exceed the worker's ability to cope with or control them. It represents the second most common occupational disease in the European Union after back pain. One in four workers in Europe is affected; women appear to be most affected.
Work-related stress can be caused by psychosocial hazards, such as work planning, organization, and management, as well as problems such as harassment and violence at work, but also by physical hazards such as noise and temperature.
Some estimates claim that costs resulting from work-related stress amount to about 20,000 million a year. Recently, a new syndrome, toward which much attention must be paid, is entering the work world and has been called Techno-Stress; "it is the disorder caused by the incorrect and excessive use of information technology and computer and digital devices," i.e., all that computer and/or digital technology, generated to be helpful such as the cell phone, PC, TV, etc, to which people devote many hours at work and otherwise, results in an abnormal flow of information procuring a true form of addiction with important consequences and the onset of all possible stress-related pathologies.
Preventing stress
Work-related stress can be prevented, all with not inconsiderable economic benefits for the company. Risk assessment for this type of stress involves the same basic principles and methods as for other workplace risks. It is essential to involve workers and their representatives to understand what causes stress, to identify and assess the various risks, to focus on which groups suffer from it, what could be done to help them, and to review the assessments with appropriate regularity to check the effectiveness of the measures taken.
Mobbing
Mobbing is commonly understood to mean conduct by the employer (or hierarchical superior, worker at the same hierarchical level, or even subordinate), who, by systematic and protracted conduct resulting in systematic and repeated hostile behavior, implements forms of prevarication or psychological persecution against the worker in the work environment. This can result in the moral mortification and marginalization of the employee, with a detrimental effect on his or her physio-psychic balance and personality complex. (Court of Cassation, Judgment No. 3875/09).
Heinz Leymann, the first scholar of the phenomenon, used the verb "to mob" to refer to all those behaviors of real psychological terrorism exercised in the work environment by superiors or subordinates (vertical mobbing), or by co-workers (horizontal mobbing), with clear discriminatory intent aimed at progressively marginalizing a worker in order to induce him or her to resign or facilitate his or her dismissal.
Other situations that can general distress, in addition to bullying, can be summarized in other terms:
- Straining: a situation originating in the work environment in which the victim suffers a single action (e.g., an unfair transfer) whose consequences are protracted stress with devastating effects on the subject's health. The victim perceives the events as having an intentional and/or discriminatory component. .
- Burn out: a syndrome that leads to the exhaustion of all energy and psychic depletion of the subject undergoing overwork who, failing to achieve set goals, short-circuits.
- Stalking: in the work environment, "occupational stalking" where the cause of persecution originates in the work environment but is also extended into private life. The persecutor, i.e., the stalker, thus adds harassment that touches on the victim's family environment in order to complete and/or reinforce his plan to force the victim to resign. .
The consequences of bullying
- Damages the worker: damage to his image, as well as economic damage to his professionalism and health, often irreversible; damage to his relationship life with the loss of friendships and moral supports, important points of help and reference, as well as to his economy. As a result, frustration, isolation and depression increase, whereby the victim begins to make hasty decisions, becomes accustomed to wrong forms of eating, excess consumption of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, etc. All of this can become the cause of workplace accidents and suicides.
- Damages the family: psychophysical damage will increase problems in the couple's relationship, severely worsening the victim's situation by isolating them even more from a world in which they previously found help and comfort.
- Damages the company: bullying will also harm those who, through ignorance, light-heartedness or inability, enact it or allow it to happen, that is, it will affect their efficiency and productivity, decreasing motivation, increasing absenteeism, conflict, injuries and illnesses, lack of interest, litigation: all of which will create a negative climate. The company will have to spend resources to replace the worker on sick leave, will see the cost of the product increase at the expense of quality with customer dissatisfaction.
- Damages the State: the entire national community is also harmed, both because of the inefficiencies that bullying produces, and because the National Health System will have to bear costs for treatment, hospitalizations, drugs.
Mobbing-related stress disorders
.Workers subjected to persecutory attitudes, mobbing or other, will react through stress in order to generate a defense mechanism, but the prolongation of harassment and strong psychological strain will lead to the appearance of a series of alterations that will affect the socio-emotional and psycho-physiological balance generating the fall of immune defenses and leading the victim to develop pathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adjustment disorder (ADD).
Tackling bullying
.It is important, if you are a victim of bullying, as it falls under prosecutable offenses, to document the physical and psychological damage especially through qualified public facilities. Contact the Medical Officer and qualified RLSs, keeping a record of the illnesses and harassment suffered.
Equally important is not to accept provocations, not to isolate oneself, not to talk incessantly about the problem and seek allies.
