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DOES YOUR JOB MAKE YOU SICK?
by Darrell Sifford

EVIDENCE IS accumulating to suggest that the number one predictor of a
healthy life is not your heredity, not your diet, nor your exercise
but...your job.

That's right.  The conclusion that some researchers are drawing is that
work satisfaction is the name of the game.  Without it, they say, you're
likely to suffer from emotional upset, which eventually may be translated
into physical illnesses.  With it, they say, you can rock through life if
not with immunity then with greater odds in your favor.

The bearer of this news is psychiatrist Peter L. Brill who said that
"something powerful takes place at work: because "for many of us our
self-esteem is so related to our sense of competency...and our identity is
so tied up with our self-esteem.  Both are tied to psychological
health--how we see ourselves and how we feel about ourselves."

Brill is director of the Center for the Study of Adult Development, which
is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania's psychiatry department,
where he is a assistant professor of psychiatry.

In an interview Brill asked this question:  If you accept that self-esteem
and identity are related to work, "What happens if you are put in a work
environment that gives you a sense of failure?"  Then he answered his own
question: "You suffer psychologyical damage unless you change the
environment."

Brill said that broad studies that began in the 1960's seem to show
conclusively the work-health connection.  A classic case that evolved from
these studies focused on a foreman who was responsible for the end of an
assembly line, where six other lines merged to present the finished
project.

The foreman had a big sense of responsibility.  He was motivated and
hard-working, a devoted husband and father, in short, Brill said, he
"sounds like a nice guy."

But his job was "undo-able", because disruptions in the lines that fed into
the end of the assembly line were beyond his control.  He worked 12 to 14
hours a day to try to succeed, but success was impossible.  Even though his
bosses told him he was performing well, the foremen suffered a series of
physical and psychological maladies, including loss of voice, depression,
anxiety and an over-riding sense of failure.

The problem, Brill said, is that psychiatry tends not to have the insight
to combat this problem.  If the foreman had sought help, a psychiatrist
"probably would have missed the work relationship or would have been
powerless to help deal with it."

Why?  Because many psychiatrists "spend a good part of their lives buried
in offices away from real-life situations" and they have 'no' basis for
connecting anxiety or sense of failure to work environment.

Psychiatry has recognized for a long time that events can precipitate
psychological upset - such as natural disasters, death and marriage.  But,
Brill said, 'psychiatry still is struggling to recognize that "an ongoing,
chronic state in the work environment may make it impossible (for somebody)
to adapt to the outside environment.'

What can be done to help those of us who, like the foreman, are going down
for the third time?  Solutions must come on two levels, Brill said.  The
first is the organization, which needs to change its climate so that
workers in the impossible or difficult jobs are given:

Freedom to vent their emotions;

Opportunity to pace themselves and take a day off when they need it without
being seen as irresponsible;

Flexibility to rotate off their jobs and learn other jobs.

The second level, Brill said, involves the people in the impossible or
difficult jobs.  Their options include:

Trying to separate their self-esteem from their work.  That is difficult
for many of us, Brill said.

Becoming indifferent about work, "spacing out" and not caring about the job
and more.  That "doesn't sound like a very good attitude." Brill said.

Going to management and arguing for changes that would make the job
"doable."  That might work, Brill said.  But "obviously the foreman can't
rearrange the assembly line all by himself."

Creating a "political network" that would offer protection against job
pressures.  In other words, Brill said, several assembly line operators
could get together and form an association.  "Loyalty then would be to the
collective group and not to the organization, and you could succeed at
being a member of the collective group.

How is it possible for somebody to determine if his job is the root cause
of his discontent, even his physical illnesses?  Here are some questions
that Brill said could be asked:

Have you ever had a job that you succeeded at and felt good about?

What is different about your present job?

Do you receive contradictory demands from your boss and others that make it
impossible for you to do your job?

Are you clear about what is expected of you?

Do you feel that you are valued by others in the organization?

Have you ever succeeded at your present job?  Has anybody else?

There is a footnote to all of this that seems to indicate that what Brill
is talking about is reality-based and not theoretical:

Women once were believed to have a built-in hormonal immunity to heart
attacks because, compared to men, they virtually were unaffected.  But now,
Brill said, a study reveals that women who work outside the home have a far
greater rate of heart attacks than women who don't work outside the home. 
The speculation is that jobs, not hormones, are what matter and that
eventually women will catch up with men in the incidence of heart disease.

Source: Industrial and Commercial Ministries, Inc. (ICM) Manual

For more information about ICM, contact:

ICM National Office
1 Court Square, Suite 280
Harrisonburg, VA 22801

(800) 659 - 1928
(540) 432 - 1919

Submitted by:

Joy Van Houdt
ICM Secretary
Hampton Roads Chapter
Hampton, VA

E-Mail: national@nfx.net

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