User:Daniel Moura Fernandez/Psychodynamics of work

The psychodynamics of work is a scientific approach developed in France in the 1980s by the psychoanalyst Christophe Dejours. It investigates the defense mechanisms used by workers when faced with situations that cause suffering due to the organization of work. According to psychodynamics, it is unacceptable to separate the worker from the human being, meaning that the individual within the workplace and the individual outside of it should not be treated as separate entities. Personal life issues should not interfere with work, and work-related issues should not interfere with personal life. Therefore, it is correct to assert that the human being is an indivisible whole.

History and Overview
The need to investigate the impacts of work organization on worker health, especially mental health, gave rise to a movement known as the School of Work Psychopathology. The discussion

of work psychopathology began in France shortly after World War II, led by contributions from the so-called "social psychiatry." The most notable figures in this movement are Paul Sivadon and Louis Le Guillant.

In his works, Sivadon addressed work as a source of growth and evolution of the human psyche, as well as the perverse forms of work activity organization that could lead to insurmountable pressures and conflicts, resulting in the development of mental disorders.

In the 1950s, Le Guillant wrote an article seeking to explain mental disorders using socio-cultural factors, although he acknowledged the influence of organic and psychic factors in the phenomenon. He believed that psychic decompensation was a consequence of an individual's life history, in association with a work context filled with contradictions and excessive demands. Gillon considered cases where working conditions were actually responsible for mental disorders to be rare. Nevertheless, he listed some "unfavorable elements at work" regarding health, such as excessive working hours, excessively high demands for attention or skills beyond the worker's capacity, and excessively monotonous activities, among other factors. The author showed the influence of Taylorism in understanding work as essentially beneficial to mental health, placing the responsibility on the worker to adapt to the environment, thus underestimating the influence of work organization or work relationships on illness.

Throughout his theoretical journey, Dejours initially focused on studying work-related diseases and later dedicated himself to the study of normalcy. He explored how defense mechanisms enable workers to remain healthy despite adverse health conditions caused by the organization of work. Dejours was a critic of positivist approaches that were prevalent in the traditional model of occupational health research. As research advanced and concepts from ergonomics, sociology, and psychoanalysis were incorporated, he evolved towards an original understanding, developing his own theory, thus transitioning from Psychopathology to the Psychodynamics of Work.

In a third phase of his theory, he shifted his focus to the study of social pathologies resulting from new forms of work organization.

The first milestone was the 1980's publication of the book "Travail: Usure Mentale". In this work, the author analyzes the individual and collective strategies used by workers to cope with the suffering arising from work, situating the genesis of this suffering in the confrontation between the worker-subject and the organization of work that, at the time, was strongly characterized by the Taylorist model.

In the 1990s, Dejours published two texts that became references in the field of mental health at work. The first was an addendum to the twelfth edition of "Travail: Usure Mentale," published in 1993 under the title "De La Psychopathologie à la Psychodynamique du Travail" The second was the book "Le facteur Humain" in 1995. It was during this period that the author replaced the concept of Work Psychopathology with that of Work Psychodynamics, shifting the focus from work-related pathologies to the study of normalcy. In other words, he delved into the puzzle of how workers manage to maintain a certain degree of psychological balance despite the precarious working conditions they face.

In a context of intense constraints and pressure, Dejours was intrigued by the fact that workers did not collapse but continued to work without exhibiting the expected psychological disorders. During this phase of his work, the author linked suffering to creativity in work, emphasizing the worker's ability to use practical intelligence to benefit their identity and engage in actions capable of providing pleasurable experiences.

With the publication of the book "Souffrance en France" in 1998, a new phase in Dejours' theory began, which continues to the present day. During this period, characterized by the consolidation and spread of psychodynamics as a theory capable of explaining the effects of work on processes of subjectivity, socio-psychic pathologies, and worker health, the focus of analysis shifted. It was no longer solely on the experiences of pleasure and suffering but on how workers subjectify these experiences, the meaning they take on, and the use of strategies arising from new forms of work organization, which includes the examination of collective defenses and cooperation.

Premises of work psychodynamics
The psychodynamics of work relies on three premises:


 * The first refers to the individual in search of self-realization: every individual is inhabited by the desire for fulfillment, which is inscribed in the pursuit of the identity that drives them, and leads them to want to make their contribution to social creation or the construction of a common work
 * The second premisse is about the existence of a gap between what is prescribed and the actual work. The subjectivities developed in day-to-day work are mobilized to bridge this gap. This fact engages the individual and elicits their subjective investment in work activities. By challenging the practical intelligence of the individual and calling for their creativity, work that allows for a degree of autonomy offers the individual the possibility of self-realization and the construction of their identity.
 * The third premise concerns the desire for judgment by others, specifically, it deals with recognition. The construction of identity in work relies, from the perspective of psychodynamic clinical work, on the necessary gaze of others, which can be either a work collective or a community of belonging.

Categories of analysis
Dejours, by adopting a perspective in which work is not inherently maddening but rather something that can lead individuals to psychological suffering depending on their work environment, and by recognizing that workers are capable of protecting themselves from the negative and pathological effects of their work environment on their mental health, developed categories within psychodynamics to address these polar demands between pleasure and suffering, health and illness. Thus, psychodynamics of work proposes five categories for studying the relationship between work organization and the worker.

The categories in psychodynamics are composed of two main categories:

Organization of the work context

 * Work organization: the division of tasks among workers, allocation, cadence, and the prescribed operating mode, as well as the division of people: the distribution of responsibilities, hierarchy, command, control, etc.
 * Working conditions: The physical environment (temperature, noise, pressure, vibration, radiation, altitude, etc.), the biological environment (viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi), hygiene and safety conditions, and the anthropometric characteristics of the workstation..
 * Labor relations: they refer to relationships with immediate and superior management, team members, and external relationships (customers, suppliers, and inspectors).

Subjective mobilization of the worker

 * Experiences of pleasure and suffering: suffering can be creative or pathogenic. In the creative sense, the individuals mobilizes themselves to transform their suffering into something beneficial for themselves. To do this, they must find a certain degree of freedom in the organization of work that allows for negotiation between organizational demands and the worker's desires. The emergence of pathogenic suffering would be related to the inflexibility of the work organization, which prevents the individual from finding ways to discharge their drives in their work activities, leading to the use of defensive strategies to cope with the work context.
 * Defensive strategies and collective discussion space: Defensive strategies serve the purpose of adapting the individual to work pressures with the goal of mitigating suffering. They differ from ego defense mechanisms in that they are not internalized and persist due to the presence of an external situation. The public speaking space signifies the creation of a space for speaking and listening where contradictory opinions and/or those based on the beliefs, values, and ideological positions of the participants can be expressed.

Other authors also include as categories within the worker's subjective mobilization:


 * Pratical intelligence: Practical intelligence, as a collective coping strategy, helps the worker resist what is prescribed by using their own resources and inventive capabilities. It presupposes the idea of cunning and mobilizes when unexpected situations arise. By confronting these situations, workers develop a particular knowledge that, when shared collectively, turns into a cooperative action. This resource aims to minimize suffering and transform it into pleasure.
 * Cooperation: Cooperation as a strategy of collective mobilization represents a way for a group of workers to reframe suffering, manage the contradictions in the work context, and transform the organization of work into a source of pleasure. This is made possible through the public space of discussion and cooperation among individual.