Centrality of work and mental health

Abstract

Based on the notion of living work, Christophe Dejours presents the thesis of the centrality of work for subjectivity and mental health. To do so, he discusses activity, the insufficiency of the task, the experience of failure in the face of reality, and the intelligence of the body and affectivity, marking its transformation as it performs the activity in a dynamic relationship between the body, subjectivity, and the activity. Rather than configuring a solipsistic text, such elements intersect each other, requiring cooperation and the complex aspects of formulating rules for the activity itself, which requires trust and collective deliberation. It is in this collective, in living together, that recognition can occur, which , based on what is done, enables self-realization in the social field, turning to those who do it and to an identity, which is what protects mental health. In the absence of conviviality and recognition, work produces pathogenic suffering. Thus, the author shows that work is never neutral toward subjectivity and identity, enabling self-realization or its own destruction.