Work Stress Creating Killer Diseases

This makes so much sense. I think that the level of 'control' a person experiences over his/her job also plays a major role. The more powerless a person feels over his/her destiny, the higher the person's stress level. Interoffice politics is also a huge stressor from my experience. Regards. Peanut

I absolutely agree Peanut! Inter staff politics, personality conflicts, job uncertainty, a general climate of fear and the loss of a sense of control that all this produces is such a common cause of stress related illness in modern times. In the UK bullying occurs most in the so called caring professions such as nursing! Inter staff politics steals energy and focus from the real aims of the work place so society in general, as well as individuals within the work place, suffer.

Mark

This raises the question of what therapy is for. Is it to help you 'adjust' to the intolerable... or to give you the strength to stand up and fight for better ways of managing our society?

Kathleen

I agree wholeheartedly Peanut - the skill in managining stressful situations is to know what you can't control and therefore shift your locus of control to your internal condition, and manage your emotional response instead. And then, to exert skillful external control when you can, and want to.

This is all very interesting

Sometimes people do need to 'stand up' for themselves at work. However we humans seem to need a sense of consistancy. If someone has consistantly put up with abuse from an employer/colegue for months or years then to suddenly 'act very different' at work can seem daunting. I find framing 'assertiveness' as 'giving people honest feedback' can be useful in teaching people how to set barriers at work. Also relaxed mental rehearsal is very useful in getting people to expereince feeling calmer with intimidating people so they no longer feel so intimidated when actually at work.

Mark

Peanut - I can understand your difficulty in dis-engaging yourself, some personality types happily shrug shoulders and say "who cares" at the drop-of-a-hat, whereas others like you and me can't give-up on things that seem to matter quite so easily.

I can detect a much higher level of 'Intensity' and 'Passion' in my aproach to any given target I set myself, than I can in most others around me. This certainly gets results - but evidently at a price.

That's a good point! And what is life without a bit of passion? I have to say that I get (unreasonably) irritated by people who think it's 'uncool' to get excited about anything. 'Cool' equals bland I reckon.

"The problem that I have repeatedly is not being able to stand by while someone else is being bullied, and, of course, whenever I've tried to stick up for the bullied person, I have become the new target."

Hi Peanut! I can really identify with what you are saying. Sounds to me like you have some wonderful qualities. Despite knowing that you risk being targetted yourself, you stand up for other people. Without people like you, bullying would be even more endemic.

I also suffered bullying for exactly these reasons. At first it made me angry that I was punished and marginalised for saying what I felt was right and objecting to other people being unfairly harrassed (which was the boss's main way of getting people who didn't perform well to leave). But over a long period the problem had seeped into the whole firm - people were scared to be seen associating with the "wrong colleagues", a culture of whispers and lies led to wholesale paranoia and disloyalty and any shred of justice in the place disintegrated. People became increasingly ill, anxious and depressed.

Things came to crunch point for me when I handed in my notice - I felt I had to leave in order to save my sanity! But I was held to a long notice period and I was made to physically move my desk away from my colleagues. I could regularly hear my boss saying pretty colourful things about me behind my back. I might as well have been sitting in the stocks!

But I amused myself by thinking about the things I wanted to say to my boss if I got the chance - listed them out on a piece of paper and rehearsed saying them to her. Not insulting things, just a rational explanation of why it is not acceptable to treat employees badly. I also thought about what I might look like when I was having this conversation with her. I was calm and elloquent and created a real picture of that in my mind. So when my boss confronted me, I stood up and said those things to her. She swore and shouted at me, but I was calm and elloquent. I think it was one of the best days of my life!

So what you imagine can be a weakness can turn out to be your greatest strength and something you can take great pride in. The fact that right and wrong mean so much to you, Peanut, means that you are the best type of person to be an advocate. As for me, I've found a firm that treats people well and am highly committed to my job now. This firm is doing very well and is able to attract high calibre staff. And I can relax knowing that if I meet another bully I will handle it very well. Anyway, what's wrong with having a bit of the latter day dragon-slayer about you? Good luck!

Clare