psychiatric – Page 28 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Good article ……. And?

There is an article doing the rounds of some of the American newspapers called “Shaping culture to be psychologically healthy” by Bill Howatt. It is a solid article but illustrates some of the limited thinking common to advocates of psychological health in workplaces.

Howatt writes about establishing and managing a suitable culture through leadership, education, awareness and other activities. But organisational cultures operate within a larger pool of cultural contexts and, most importantly, business structures.

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Mental health prevention is still glossed over

The latest edition of CEO Magazine contains a brief report of a workplace mental health breakfast seminar. It is written by John Karagounis, the CEO of the CEO Circle, the host of the seminar. Prominent speakers included Julia Gillard, Paul Howes and Georgie Harman, all associated with beyondblue. The prevention of mental ill-health at work is only inferred in this article, which reflects the dominant, and limited, perspective of most of the mental health sector. A deeper and broader analysis of workplace mental health is deserved.

However, the article included two statements of note. Clarification is being sought on this Karagounis statement:

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Australian research into corporate culture and mental health

In December 2019, it was announced that Professor Maureen Dollard had received funding to investigate “the impact of toxic workplaces on mental health”. The significance of this research is evident in the University of South Australia media release which describes this research as the “first of its kind in the world.

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Recognition for hard work and inspiration

There seems to be a spate of intelligent and knowledgeable people talking about the structural changes required by businesses to reduce and prevent psychological harm. Two Australian voices are Lucinda Brogden and Dr Rebecca Michalak. New Zealand has Dr Hillary Bennett who recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Awards. Bennett’s interview with SafeGuard magazine should be obligatory reading.

Bennett is asked about the Human Resource (HR) profession and nails a critical difference in the HR approach to the occupational health and safety (OHS) one:

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Even neuroscience needs sociology

Summer in Australia means a lot of time traveling in a car, often to the extent of completing an abridged audiobook and/or several podcasts. One episode of BBC’s The World This Week caught my ear, not because it is titled “Australia Burning” but for the opinion piece by Martin Bashir (17 minute mark). Bashir discusses mid-life crises, risk aversion and neuroplasticity. I look at the relevance to occupational health and safety.

Bashir spoke about the importance of challenging oneself, especially at “an age of comfort” (my term) an achievement. This may not seem related to OHS, the raison d’être of this blog, but the age of comfort can be defined as an age of safety or risk aversion, or as Bashir says “a mechanism for self-protection”, and this period in our lives may bleed into the way we see the world, the type of OHS advice we may provide our clients and, perhaps, the way that our OHS legislation is constructed.

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Mental health and “workplace disability”

Deutsche Welle‘s regular program “World in Progress” reported on Work in its December 18 2019 edition. It includes discussions of exploitation and trafficking of Nigerian women and South Korean workers being pressured to reluctantly attend work functions. Of particular relevance to the theme of this blog is the last report in the program when workplace psychological health is discussed.

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Focus on the hoops and not the holes

There is a confluence of investigations into mental health and suicides in Australia at the moment, and most of them overlap with occupational health and safety (OHS). Each of these increases the understanding of the relationship between work and mental health but no one seems to be connecting the threads into a cohesive case. This article doesn’t either, by itself, but hopefully the threads of the issues are identified through the themes of various SafetyAtWorkBlog articles.

Recently Tim Quilty of the Liberal Democratic Party addressed the issue of suicide in relation to his contribution to the debate on Industrial Manslaughter (IM) laws in the Victorian Parliament. His assertions seem a little naïve:

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