Chapter 3: - These physiological problems more or less
are our basic needs such as food, water,
“Frustration, Stress and
Burnout; Mental and Health
Hygiene”
All adjustments processes, whether they are of
birth, individual relationship, getting through
college, or seeking a job, take their toll on human
effort in physical energy, in material resources, in
mental anguish, or in taxing the good will of one’s
friends and association.(Reed 1973)
There is no topic of great interest to most of us than
frustration and its impact on human behaviour.
Many of men pronounced stirred-up state of mind
such as fear, anger, disgust and contempt have
posed the question, why? What cause such reaction
a reaction? What has brought a change to his/her
behaviour? What is the frustration that has brought
about such behaviour?
This chapter will help us gain better
understanding of frustration, stress,
burnout and their effect on one’s mental
health.
 Frustration
o Main Problems of Life that Give rise to
Frustration.
 Reacting to Frustration
 Stress, Burnout: Their Effect on One’s
Behaviour.
 What is mental health?
 Mental hygiene- Principles and role
Business and Industry
 Frustration
- is a stirred-up state of hopelessness that
result when a person is prevented from
reaching a particular value-goal to which he
has aspired or is prevented from satisfying
his physiological needs.
- It is simply defined as the condition of being
thwarted in the satisfaction of a motive.
- The three main problems in life that brings
out certain degree of frustration are
physiological, environmental and
psychological
 Physiological Problem
shelter, sex. Meeting such need is temporary.
Once satisfied, the frustrating feeling is
subdued. When there is a strong deprivation
of these needs, once experiences an
unpleasant thwarting is circumstances. A
disequilibrium has taking place and when
this has been restored, man reverts to his
former self.
 Environmental Problems
- Numerous environmental factors come to
fore which may or may not be easily
overcome.
- One of the most difficult problems in this
area is one's cultural do's and don'ts.
Environmental frustration cannot be
avoided, for there are always certain factors
in a person's situation which keep him to
achieving a degree of personal growth and
achievement.
 Psychological Problems
- The most difficult to resolve as they are
within the inner feelings of a person. You
may not be able to detect his frustration
through his overt behaviour. Psychological
frustrations represent a more serious threat
to the personality of the individual than to
environmental frustrations. If severe enough,
they may create considerable emotional
tension with accompanying behaviour
disorders.
 Reacting to Frustration
Figure 2. Reaction to Non-Satisfaction
 Stress, Burnouts: Their Effects on
One’s Behaviour
SIGNS OF STRESS
 Difficulty in sleeping or other changes in
sleep habits.
 Chronic irritability or anxiety
 Changes in eating habits
 Increased use of alcohol, tobacco, or other
drugs
 Frequent illness including headaches and
stomach aches
 Cold hands, rapid breathing and heartbeat,
achenes, muscle tension
Stress
- is the nonspecific psychological and
physiological response of the body of any
demand upon it. According to Schwartz
(1980)
- Anything pleasant or unpleasant - that
interferes with the body's equilibrium is a
stressor, or source of stress. Whenever
you’re fired or promote, hit with a brick or
caressed by a lover, you experience stress.
Your body has the same reaction every time.
Any change, positive or negative, evokes
stress.
Major Causes of Stress in Organizations
• Occupational Demand
-Some Jobs are more stressful than others.
Consider the librarian, police officer,
surgeon, college professor, airline pilot. A
survey of 130 different occupations
confirmed the basic fact that some jobs are
more stressful than others. Results indicated
that several features of the jobs are related to
the levels of stress they generate.
• Role Ambiguity
- Stress from uncertainly. This occurs when
individuals are uncertain about several
matters relating to their jobs. The scope of
responsibilities, how to divide their time
between various duties etc.
• Overload and Underload
- Doing too much or too little. Employees are
asked to do more work than they can handle
in a given period of time or employees
believe that they lack the required skills to
perform a given job. (Qualitative Overload).
Underloads leads to boredom and monotony.
‘’The hardest job in the world is doing
nothing- you can’t take a break’’.
 Responsibility for others
- A heavy burden. In any organization some
persons are primarily concerned with, is the
physical side of business (supplies,
maintenance etc.) others financial (budget,
accounting etc.) and still others with people
like supervisors and managers. Research
findings report that in general, individuals
who are responsible for other people, who
must motivate, reward, punish,
communicate etc. - experience higher levels
of stress than persons who handle other
organizational functions.
  Lack of Social Support
- The cost of isolation. Social supports help
individuals deal with stress. One study
shows that persons who felt they had the
support of their immediate supervisors
reported fewer physical symptoms
associated with stress than managers who
did not enjoy friendship and support from
others at work.
• Lack of Participation in decision
- Helplessness, strikes. People who want a
certain degree of control over their own fate
feel that they know a good deal about their
work. Thus, when they are prevented from
participating in decision making, they
experience considerable stress.
 Nonwork Demands
- Non work demands create stress for people
which may carry over into the work
environment. Although not all workers are
subject to family demands related to
marriage, child rearing, parental care, etc.
these may create conflicts or overloads that
are difficult to manage.
 Physical Demands
- Extreme environments, strenuous activities
and hazardous substances create physical
demands for people at work. Work
environments which are very hot or very
cold may lead to dehydration or frostbite.
  Emotional and Stress Reaction
- Emotions are aroused by external stimuli
which can instigate aggressive behaviour.
Emotion associated with pleasure (joy, love)
 or displeasure (anger, fear, pressure, heart
rate, dilating of pupils etc.) Emotion may be
adaptive or disruptive depending on its
intensity. At low to high level of arousal it
may produce alertness and interest in the
talk at hand. At the optimum level of
arousal, performance may decline and
seriously impair the process that control
organized behaviour. A long-term emotional
stress can impair a person’s physical health
as well as his mental efficiency.
BURNOUT
- Burnout is a cumulative process of gradual
wearing down of your reserve, with little
recharging of your energies. It is mental,
physical and emotional exhaustion. It strikes
all ages, sexes and job levels, yet the most
frequent victims are those who seemingly
are the most productive years of their life.
 BURNOUT IN ORGANIZATIONS
- The "hurried executive" or the kind of
person who is burnout prone is often drawn
to the fast-moving organizations that would
hasten his/her burning out. The fast-moving
achiever who competently handles all tasks
that are given to him/her is rewarded by
having the number of tasks increased. "No"
is a word hardly used by the perfectionist;
therefore he/she continues to handle a
greater than average amount of work. Work
overload is a major contributor to burnout.
This concept can be presented in the
following formula: Susceptible Individual +
Overload or Crisis= Burnout
 Mental Hygiene
 Mental Health
- Mental Health is a matter of degree. There is
no hard and fast line that separate health
from illness. It is not a simple matter to
divide the population into two distinct group
those who should be institutionalized and
those who should not. Many of us at one
time or another exhibit traits and pattern of
behaviours which, if accentuated and
continuous, would necessitate psychiatric
care.
Some characteristics of Mentally Healthy People
 Self-acceptance
 Acceptance of others
 Ability to meet the demand of life
Mental Health Problems in Business and
Industry
A. Cliques in the work force - Those informal
organizations that could hamper the smooth
flow of the work if the mutual resentment
remains unchecked.
B. Wage Increases - No matter who receives
increases, there is bound to be some
resentment because of the resulting
disturbances in the status relationship among
the workers.
C. Evaluation of Workers – it is the evaluation to
be based simply on quality of willingness to
cooperate, conscientiousness, loyalty, and
dependability also be considered. And how
are these to be measured.
D. Work and Assignments - In relation to the
workers' personalities, one worker may do
well under a more permissive one. Some men
workers may resist a woman supervisor no
matter how able she is because this situation
reverses the traditional role of women in
society.
E. Changes - especially technological changes
and changes of any kind, whether they be
changes in location, in machine and
processes, in products, or in management.
Anxieties and frustrations often follow such
changes and affect the work of the employees.
- Mental Hygiene is a branch of psychology
which deals with the mental, behavioural and
emotional adjustment through the application
of principles and practices which have some
scientific foundation or truth.
There are three known ways to which the
principles and practices of mental hygiene are
done.
1. The Preventive Approach - This is based on
the principle that the best way to ensure a
well-adjusted individual is to surround him
with environmental influences that will
 enable him to develop his full potentialities,
to
2. The Therapeutic Method - concerned with
the attempt to correct minor behavioural
adjustment through the various counselling
and techniques of psychotherapy, or adjust
to the social and/or physical environment of
the person in order to help him obtain the
amount of emotional security and self-
confidence necessary.
3. The Curative Approach - This is sometime
called "preventive psychiatry". It is
concerned with the detection and correction
of serious but curative
maladjustments. Although this is the work
of a trained clinician or psychiatrist, it is
helpful for the layman to have at least a
fundamental knowledge of the major types
of behavioural maladjustment in order that
he may have a basis in determining
behavioural maladjustment that needs the
attention of competent specialists.