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l'Information Psychiatrique. Volume 84, Number 9, 835-40, Novembre 2008, pathologies du travail

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Author(s) : Clément Bonnet, Jean-Paul Arveiller

Summary : The importance of work for the mentally handicapped.The function of work which, since Freud, was deemed a constituent part of all mental and social life, is currently raising questions. Users have a contrasted image of it, as shown by a number of recent studies. The latter are partly conditioned by the evolution in the job market and current work demands. When one poses the question of the place of work in an overall life project, users and social players are today confronted with the following alternative: to give preference either to social status, salary and stress, or to mental health, quality of life and stigmatisation. This choice, in any case, should be validated by prior systematic confrontation with the professional situation. It might be possible to avoid the current trap of certain reinsertion schemes which maintain users in an illusion, making a situation chronic by progressively moving them further away from the possibility of work.

Keywords : employment, iatrogenics, professional insertion, life project, rehabilitation social representations