Article by Margherita Nas, published in Le Monde  http://lemde.fr/2pn36nl

In a collective essay “ When work hurts ”, the authors present their methodology for addressing situations of suffering at work, according to the interactional approach of the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto (California).

They were young professionals in the marketing and sales professions, concerned about their relationship to work and the psychological difficulties they faced.

 “The work took our minds and if we happened to consult psychotherapists, the latter did not pay much attention to the work neuroses which were ours! »  

For several years, they then meet on Sundays to submit their work concerns to different problem-solving techniques, and discover the systemic and strategic model of Palo Alto.

article The World

Today, Claude de Scorraille, Olivier Brosseau and Grégoire Vitry  are all members of LACT, an intervention, training and research firm specializing in the systemic and strategic regulation of individual or collective psychological and relational disorders. In their collective work, When work hurts, they present the work, methods and techniques used within LACT "to help [their] clients to overcome their psychological suffering and to solve their relational problems in a professional setting".

Systematic approach

The book is the fruit of a twenty-year maturation process, the culmination of a collective adventure that began when the authors were young professionals. In a pedagogical concern, the book opens with a general presentation of the nature of work problems, and then lays down the basic theoretical principles of the systemic approach, in order to give a first idea of ​​​​the intervention methodology of the LACT. .

Following this theoretical introduction, so that the reader gets a clear idea of ​​the application of systemic intervention, the authors relate case studies, treated within the LACT, where people come personally or on the advice of their company, general practitioner or occupational health professional. Burn-out, addiction, harassment, incivility or even the evil of authority are thus approached.

If many books have already been written on suffering at work, the work of the speakers of LACT remains no less innovative, as pointed out by Nathalie Duriez, lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Paris-8: 

“Rather than theorizing once again on this psychopathology of work, the authors report on an experience and a clinical practice in the company to treat this suffering. »

When work hurts , by Claude de Scorraille, Olivier Brosseau and Grégoire Vitry ( InterEditions)