Recent statistics show that work disability has increased in the UK, with more sick days being taken every day.
The main contributing factor to this trend is the rise in mental health problems. More individuals are being diagnosed with depression, anxiety or ADHD. There has been a growing demand for psychological services, and medical treatment is often sought. The individualistic explanations, such as lack of exercise, poor coping skills and excessive use of social media, often obscure how the ‘mental health crisis’ has actually matured and become a major social concern.
Various groups have experienced changes in the labour market due to societal, technological and cultural transitions between the 1960s and now. The groups my team and I have investigated include teachers, social workers, insurance sector employees, metal workers, bank employees, medical doctors, well-educated professionals, municipal employees and work stress researchers. All of the groups studied have had to adapt to new circumstances, learn novel ways to perceive their work and apply different behavioural strategies in their daily lives in response to a changing society.
Societal change has shifted many employees from physical and material work to interactive and cognitive tasks and environments. Huge numbers of specialists, professionals, educators and managers have emerged and started to provide their views on what modern organisations and citizens need. Medicalisation and psychologisation have progressed in concepts and practices related to work and health.
The transition of society has impacted organisational cultures and employee ideals. Since the 1970s, for example, job advertisements have increasingly sought applicants with social, emotional and psychological qualities to meet the demands of customer-friendly work processes and group-based innovations. The modernisation of workership has not only impacted ideals but has also influenced how people understand their lives and view everyday challenges. A doctor who began their career in the late 1960s once described their early patients as being ‘from a different world’. During their appointments with doctors, patients preferred to be offered physical and biological terms, explanations and diagnoses, rather than mental health concepts and psychological views. However, this social setting soon changed.
The societal turn has created a new sort of autonomy and potential options for many, but at the same time increasing numbers of people have found themselves in psychologically challenging situations, seeking meaning and direction. Millions of employees have had to navigate their lives and manage their subjective realities independently. At work, mental burden has increasingly emerged somewhere between the ideal authentic self and the everyday compromises of one’s job.
The development of social character with active subjective life management, and a labour market with a strong focus on mental capital has led to the emergence of a new mental health-orientated individual. An ideal character has developed who applies psychological frameworks to their daily life, seeks preventative psychomedical advice, and is actively aware of their own and others’ mental vulnerability. In the face of excessive job demands, interpersonal problems, the death of a beloved pet or an overheated personal life, it has become more common to seek health and psychological support.
In this historical context, more people and organisations have begun to recognise psychological issues and mental health challenges in themselves, team members and leaders. This has not been a direct increase in mental health problems indicative of psychiatric pathology, but rather an increase in mental vulnerability resulting from the transition to social, institutional and personal spaces more attuned to subjective aspects of life and problems of the autonomous self.
In current healthcare, patients are actively involved in their care, interacting with doctors and other professionals through consulting services and digital channels. In the context of wellness medicine, the doctor–patient relationship is less hierarchical and more reciprocal than in earlier phases of medicine. Doctors employ a shared decision-making model and take into account the patient’s perspective. Patients have become clients who pay attention to their emotional wellbeing and mental coping. Under this behavioural setting, both professionals and non-professionals are vigilant in observing, reporting and acting upon potential threats to mental wellbeing.
Various rituals related to nurturing and supporting mental health have emerged in social arenas and work organisations. These rituals are promoted and built in different communities devoted to mental health. Organisational developers, stakeholders, advocacy communities and researchers are active participants in producing techniques to support wellbeing and work ability, with the aim of strengthening mental health. Occupational groups and citizens have access to various social media platforms where they can communicate and discuss information and perceptions of the best mental health practices. At the same time, many commercial agents benefit from the growing mental health industry by providing pastoral care and support services for individuals seeking help.
The historical analysis shows that the rise in work disabilities and sick days due to mental health problems is a logical consequence of the transition occurring in the structure of social behaviour and institutional settings. The spread of work based on mental characteristics, combined with an actor seeking psychological satisfaction, has led to a repositioning of mental health in the labour market. Although the historical turn was not a choice made by individuals, it is often treated as such in psychological services and healthcare frameworks.
In contemporary society, mental health has become a field for addressing various challenges related to work and social life. In a society where mental vulnerability is prevalent, scarcity is not limited to material possessions. Instead, it manifests as a lack of resources and feelings of discomfort and agony in the subjective realm. From this perspective, the current ‘mental health crisis’ is the unintended consequence of a societal shift that is manifesting itself in work, healthcare, politics and how we see ourselves.
Ari Väänänen is Research Professor at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. He has worked in various research units in several countries and as Vising Professor at the University of Kent.
The Rise of Mental Vulnerability at Work by Ari Väänänen access here for £29.99 on Bristol University Press.
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