Dominique Lhuilier: “There is a silence surrounding mental health issues at work”

Stress , suffering, exhaustion, burnout, anxiety and depression , psychological trauma, addictions, absenteeism, resignations, suicides... The increase in mental health disorders is clear. They rank third among the most common conditions, after cancers and cardiovascular diseases: according to the World Health Organization , one in four people on average will face them during their lifetime, with the Covid-19 pandemic worsening this prognosis.

France holds the European record for the prevalence of depressive syndromes (11%, compared to a European average of 6%). And the consumption of psychotropic drugs represents the largest expenditure item for health insurance. Mental disorders are the leading cause of years lived with disability and are responsible for more than a third of work absenteeism.

This deterioration must be put into perspective with the transformations of work and employment. Increased production demands, just-in-time work organization, increased pace, densification and complexity: the ingredients of "hurried work" create the widely shared feeling of being "overwhelmed" , "exhausted" , "underwater" . This work in apnea wears out both the body and the psyche.

Added to this is a dual precariousness of employment (growth of fixed-term contracts, temporary work, external flexibility, forced part-time work, unemployment) and work (demand for mobility, adaptability, versatility) which weakens functions, professions and work environments. Hence the increase in breaks and transitions in professional trajectories. This imposed precariousness, a powerful vector of insecurity, has repercussions on all aspects of life. There remains the fear of losing the ability to hold one's place in the world with others.

These transformations weaken the collective resources that enable us to cope with the challenges of work: transmission of professional rules, mutual assistance, collective regulation of the workload, reciprocity in exchanges within teams, work to reorganize tasks, etc., which tends to isolate each person, forced to draw on their own resources. At work, as in life, we cannot stand without others.

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