Mental disorders and work: the case of an agent visits

Abstract

Establishing a causal relationship between work and mental illnesses has been at the center of theoretical debates and considered a rather polemic issue, being one of the controversies in the field of mental health and work. This article discusses the case of a worker whose process of getting sick seems to be connected to his last work experience. The groundwork of this case was the Biographic Method of Louis Guillant (2006), and the analysis of work-related psychosocial factors proposed by Lima (2002). The data were found empirically by means of carrying out five unstructured interviews with the worker. Over the studying period, the report issued by the medical inspection service of our client was also analyzed. In the end of this article, we indicate the aggressions and aggravations suffered by the worker such as an insufficient social support for solving conflicts, the degradation of the professional activity, and as well of the meaning of work itself, the lack of acknowledgment, and also work-rest shift schedules unfitted for allowing the worker to preserve his social life are the main factors that proved to be the key-elements for understanding such sickening process.