Stress and Suffering at Work

The Role of Culture and Society

Sous la direction de :
Marc Loriol

Éditeur : Palgrave Macmillan
eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-05876-0
DOI : 10.1007/978-3-030-05876-0

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-05875-3
26 février 2019
218 pages

Abstract

This edited collection explores different strands of social constructionist theory and methods to provide a critique of the prevailing discourse of work stress, and introduces a radical new approach to conceptualizing suffering at work. Over the last three decades, stress and other forms of suffering at work (including burn-out, bullying, and issues relating to work-life balance) have emerged as important social and medical problems in Western countries. However, stress is a contested category, not (as many argue) a well-defined clinical, biological and psychological state that affects people in the same way in different cultures and at different times. But researches gathered in this book show how perception of stressors and stress processes is embedded both in macro-social and micro-social contexts. These context frame actors’ strategies created and actors construct the situations: in that way, stress and suffering at work can be understood as the result of management practices, labour union strategies, the innovative theories of psychologists or doctors, news magazine articles, public health policies and so on. Thus, a social constructionist perspective helps to shed light on new approaches to prevention and interventions of work stress. The variety of ways for dealing with stress and suffering at work indicates that there is no single recipe or prescription to fit the many diverse settings and professional contexts in which these problems arise.

Table of contents (10 chapters)

Introduction: What Does the Social Construction of Stress Mean?
Marc Loriol, p. 1-19

“Elective Affinities” and Development of “Normal Science”: What Kind of Regulation? The Example of Hans Selye (1907–1981)
Guillaume Lecoeur, p. 21-35

Epidemiological Transition and the Emergence of Mental Discomfort: The Case of Work Stress
Ari Väänänen & Pekka Varje, p. 37-57

How Much Do You Suffer? The Performativity of Scientific Scales of Work-Related Suffering
Florence Allard-Poesi & Sandrine Hollet-Haudebert, p. 59-85

The Discourse of Stress: Individual Pathology or Communal Ritual
Sheila McNamee, p. 87-104

The Different Dimensions of the Social Construction Process
Marc Loriol, p. 105-128

The Problem of Work Stress and the Need to Re-imagine the Bio-Psycho-Social Model
David Wainwright & Elaine Wainwright, p. 129-154

Understanding Stress as a Form of Institutional Maintenance and Disruption Work
Penny Dick, p. 155-175

Burnout in Quebec. Behind Psychological Suffering, Shifting in Social Representation and Relation to Work
Laurie Kirouac, p. 177-195

General Conclusion
Marc Loriol, p. 197-213

Editor

Marc Loriol is Researcher (CNRS) at the laboratory of the Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Économie et de la Société (IDHE.S) at Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France.

Share this Post:

Tagged with: Domaine 1. Travail

The Role of Culture and Society

Abstract

Table of contents (10 chapters)

Editor

ARTICLES CONNEXES