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 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:
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-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.
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 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:
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).
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.
