Claude de Scorraille during the meeting of the Association of Doctors of the 6th arrondissement of Paris with Cabinet LACT, on the theme “STRESS AT WORK”.
Nearly thirty doctors attended, on Tuesday April 8, 2014, the evening debate organized by the Association of doctors of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, around the theme of "Suffering at work" followed by a dinner .
A few figures to situate the debate
According to a 2011 study, we note that:
- 40.7% of employees are exposed to stress in the course of their work
- 50 to 60% of working days are lost, i.e. a loss for companies of 20 billion euros
- 22% of employees say they are victims of hostile behavior in their professional environment
- 300 to 400 employees commit suicide every year
Definition of stress
Stress results from an imbalance between the constraints of the environment and the ability of each (in fact our individual resources) to cope with them.
We distinguish between two types of stress:
- Stress after a traumatic accident: a sudden event that turns things upside down, such as the arrival of a new manager, a diversification of the company's profession, a move, a dismissal……….
- The stress by accumulation of events that the individual supports until the “last drop of water that makes it overflow…..” arrives. And this is where it produces the burn out.
Common definition of burnout
It is a term now overused; we use it as soon as we do not feel well, a little depressed.
definition of burnout is as follows:
It is a decrease in a person's energy, vitality and ability to function, resulting from a sustained effort to achieve an unrealistic goal and this , in a professional context.
Our definition of burnout
Lact defines burnout as an adjustment disorder
We will adapt…….until the moment when we no longer adapt. We can no longer manage to build something to make things better, to put in place actions that make us master the situation.
We are confronted with this type of problem in professions or in individuals displaying very high ideals; this is the case with health professionals or in companies with a strong culture of "high-end service"
- We are in denial of our own limits and we end up sinking. Living beyond our means in terms of personal resources, we are going to bankruptcy
- We manufacture disillusions in chain and we lose the meaning of what we do
Burnout is part of a dynamic process comprising several stages. There is little recourse to the doctor because the people concerned believe themselves strong, beyond any need for consultation.
To return to the concept of attempted solutions
The reactions of those around us reveal our ambivalences. Attempts at solutions are dysfunctional when they are not effective. "Don't put your spleen in court bouillon", "tell yourself that you don't care", "you have to take care of yourself"…. these are pieces of advice that generally have no effect.
The victim of a burnout fears being revealed because it will then be weakened. She must find a motivation to see the situation differently and it is our role to help her. It is a question of making “the person fall before he falls by himself”.
Be careful not to give radical and definitive solutions either, which relieve you at the time but can turn out to be counterproductive in a second step!
Conclusion
When we make a diagnosis, of course, we have to deal with an urgent problem.
But we give ourselves time because this diagnosis must be operative; he will give “the path to follow”. In the case of Cédric, we told him the strategy to adopt: how to say things, what relational attitude to put in place…..
The Palo Alto method is based on a relational and interactional approach to the difficulties encountered. We work on a problem by defining a precise and measurable objective. We are not trying to fight the symptom but to acquire new resources. And we use the paradox a lot in the reframing.
The results displayed within the research centers are 80%.
