Depression at work

The relationship between depression and work life is becoming more apparent every day.

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Hi, nice to say hello to you. I haven't written anything about depression in a while. This time I want to address the topic of depression at work. When I studied personnel management, my thesis was about it. Especially about creating an emotional intelligence training program apart from an employee support program.
Experts and statistics agree that depression is increasingly playing a role in the lives of many people who work for companies or even on their own. Although work is not the main cause of emotional disturbance and does not necessarily lead to depression, it can promote or enhance depressive states. It must be taken into account that in the same working conditions some people get depressed and others do not, so we cannot speak of 'a clear work pathology', according to psychologist Santiago Gonzalez.

The truth is that job insecurity, stress exhaustion or frustration, are work factors that can generate anxiety reactions that, if the person is vulnerable, can end in depression.

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This disease is accessed by several ways, according to José Luis González de Rivera, Professor of Psychiatry. I present you some of the most common ones:

✅ By chronic stress (excessive demands at work) and by acute stress, which is linked to the obligation to complete tasks with deadlines. The latter type of fatigue particularly affects professionals such as lawyers and journalists.

✅ From frustration, 'wanting to achieve something and not achieving it. Disillusionment can lead to a loss of consideration and a state of depression. People often need an intangible reward: to have their merits recognized.

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✅ Burn out or burnout syndrome,. This mostly affects people who work in direct contact with the public, such as healthcare professionals, teachers, salespeople or police officers. The person becomes exhausted and disinterested in their work and in treating others well and that in turn, generates guilt.

✅ Psychological mistreatment or mobbing. Mistreatment, insults, abuse, harassment of all kinds. Indifference, invisibilization and others make the worker feel uncomfortable, affect their self-esteem and no longer want to go to work and therefore their performance is affected.

The psychologist Juan Carlos Fernández Arias, assures that in many of these situations 'if a good preventive management is not done, adaptive disorders end up being generated'. In his opinion, 'the adaptive disorder is a pathology with a reaction of anxiety and depression very common in the workplace, and has more to do with socio-environmental variables than with genetics'.

Is there hope for a depressed or stressed worker?

Definitely yes. I have already mentioned this in my writings or forum chats. Over 80% of people with clinical depression can be successfully treated. The key to recovery is that their symptoms are recognized early and that they receive the treatment they need. Although sometimes the bosses or the work environment itself are the cause of depression in the worker, it should also be noted that many companies are helping their employees with depression by offering their supervisors training on depressive illnesses. In addition, access to employee assistance programs (EAP), such as the one I mentioned at the beginning, and access to occupational health personnel contribute to significant reductions in lost time and work-related accidents, as well as marked increases in productivity.

Depression is preventable, treatable and surmountable. Never forget that.