The different dimensions of the social construction process

Abstract

In any given country, various professional groups in different places and at different times resort to various uses of stress discourses and stress theories expressing their suffering at work and labeling their problems. Individual and collective strategies for managing and coping with difficulties at work also vary. The experience and the effect of potentially stressful events cannot be grasped unless one understands the social construction process of occupational stress and suffering and what workers can do to tackle these issues in the workplace (i.e., changing the stressful condition or constructing differently the meaning of difficulties and stress). This process involves a circular relation between the invention and dissemination of a new category or label (stress, burnout, etc.), the definition and the negotiation of the situation, the labeling or categorization of a person or an event and the moral career of persons or events before and after they are categorized.