Stress Management and

Counselling
• Stress is state of Tension
• Stress is defined as a substantial imbalance between demand (physical or psychological)
and response capability, under conditions where failure to meet the demand has
important consequences. ( McGrath 1970)

• Stress is a response of an individual to a given situation that tests his abilities to deal with
the situation presented to him. For a given situation if an individual perceives that he
does not have required abilities and resources to meets challenges or demands pose by
such situation, he losses the confidence to find solution to situation and therefore
undergoes psychological pressure which is called as stress

• For example employees is experiencing stress due to his inability to perform accounting
task
• Thus the situation, often referred to as the stressor, and the response
together create the stress that an individual experiences.

• Stress is a part of day-to-day living of every individual.

• The reason for stress differ from person to person

• High level of stress can be a serious threat to the personality traits of

the individual and can cause physiological and social problems.
• stress is associated with demands and resources .
• Demands are responsibilities, pressures, obligations, and uncertainties individuals face in the
workplace.

• Resources are things within an individual’s control that he or she can use to resolve the demands.

• When you take a test at school you feel stress because you confront opportunities pressures. you can
apply resources to being prepared, or obtaining social support—you will feel less stress.
 Causes / Sources of Stress
Stressors/
• Environmental Factors
• There are three main types of environmental uncertainty: economic, political, and

technological.
• Changes in the business cycle create economic uncertainties. When the economy is contracting,

people become increasingly anxious about their job security.

• Political uncertainties

• Because innovations can make an employee’s skills and experience obsolete in a very short time,

computers, robotics, automation, and similar forms of technological change are also a threat to

many people and cause them stress

• Organizational Factors
• Task demands relate to a person’s job. They include the design of the job (its degrees of

autonomy, task variety, degree of automation), working conditions, and the physical work layout.

• Role demands relate to pressures placed on a person as a function of the particular role he or she

plays in the organization.

• Role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy.

• Role overload occurs when the employee is expected to do more than time permits.

• Role ambiguity means role expectations are not clearly understood and the employee is not sure what to do.
• Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees.
• Lack of social support from colleagues and poor interpersonal relationships can cause
stress, especially among employees with a high social need. (fights, racial harassment,
and sexual harassment)
• Personal Factors
• Family issues Marital difficulties, the breaking of a close relationship, and

discipline troubles with children create stress.

• The economic problems.

• Personality (type A & B personality)

• Each new and persistent stressor adds to an individual’s stress level. So a single

stressor may be relatively unimportant in itself.

• To appraise the total amount of stress an individual is under, we have to sum up

his or her opportunity stresses, constraint stresses, and demand stresses.

• Consequences of Stress
• Physiological Symptoms
• stress could create changes in metabolism, increase heart and breathing rates and blood pressure, bring on
headaches, and induce heart attacks.

• Psychological Symptoms
• Job dissatisfaction

• tension, anxiety, irritability, boredom.

• Behavioral Symptoms
• Behavior-related stress symptoms include reductions in productivity, absence, and turnover, as well as changes in
eating habits, increased smoking or consumption of alcohol, rapid speech, fidgeting, and sleep disorders.
 Why Do Individuals Differ in Their Experience of Stress? / Stress
vulnerability

• What differentiates people in terms of their ability to handle stress? / What

individual variables moderate the relationship between potential stressors
and experienced stress?

• Perception, job experience, social support, and personality—are relevant.

• Perception

• stress potential lies in an employee’s interpretation of those conditions.

• Layoffs may cause one person to fear losing his job, while another sees an opportunity to get a large allowance and start her own business.

• Experience on the job

• tends to be negatively related to work stress.

• people eventually develop coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Because this takes time, senior members of the organization are more likely to
be fully adapted and should experience less stress.

• Social support
• relationships with co-workers or supervisors

• personality traits
• Neuroticism - neurotic individuals are more prone to experience psychological strain. they believe their environments are more threatening. They also tend to select less
adaptive coping mechanisms, relying on avoidance as a way of dealing with problems rather than attempting to resolve them

• Workaholics - are people obsessed with their work; they put in an enormous number of hours, think about work even when not working, and create additional work

responsibilities to satisfy an inner compulsion to work more.

 Extreme products of stress
• Job Burnout
• A situation in which employees are emotionally exhausted, develop cynicism about their work, and feel unable to
accomplish their professional goals.

The human body, when faced with stress moves through three phases- alarm (fight or flight), resistance (or,
alternatively, adaption), and exhaustion.
• When employees are emotionally exhausted, they cannot instantly rebuild their ability to cope with future stress,
once it is depleted.
•
Burnout, physically and psychologically weakened from trying to combat stress.
• Trauma
• Occurs following a close involvement with organisational crisis or employee abuse by
employer (shock of sudden events)
• Causes of workplace trauma – wrong termination, harassment, layoffs
Frustration
• Another cause of stress

• It is a result of motivation drive being blocked to prevent one from reaching a desired goal

• Become irritable and uneasy

• These reactions are defense mechanisms since one is trying to defend oneself from psychological
effects of blocked goal

• Situation is serious when it is long run frustration

• Types of reactions to frustration
• Aggression – aggressive demands (eg: promotion)

• Apathetic - no response to your job and associates

• withdrawal – leave the company or demand shift

• Fixation - cursing or blaming others for not achieving goal

• physical disorders

• substitute goals – achieve other goals to take revenge (becoming a leader)

• Sources of frustration
• Management – changed policies

• Coworkers - delay work, poorly done inputs

• Environment - rain, power failure

• Hassles of life – prejudices, got many things to do, family problems, illness

• Oneself – goals are beyond capabilities

 STRESS AND PERFORMANCE
• Constructive stress, or eustress: (challenging stress)
• Moderate levels of stress by prompting increased work effort, stimulating creativity, and encouraging
greater diligence.

• perform their tasks better, more intensely, or more rapidly

• Destructive stress, or distress: (hindrance stress)

• is dysfunctional for both the individual and the organization.

• Too much stress can overload and break down a person’s physical and mental systems resulting in
absenteeism, turnover, errors, accidents, dissatisfaction, reduced performance, unethical behavior and
even illness.
 STRESS AND HEALTH

• stress can impact a person’s health.

• It is a potential source of both anxiety and frustration, which can harm the body’s physiological
and psychological well-being over time.

• Health problems associated with stress include heart attack, stroke, hypertension, migraine
headache, ulcers, overeating, depression, and muscle aches.
 Measures taken for managing stress

• Stress control measures at Individual level

1. Personal wellness
Its relates to an employee’s full potential search through a personal
health promotion programme. This approach is preventive.
Employees must learn to lead disciplined life. A Change in their life
style keeping away from smoking, alcohol etc. They must opt for
healthy diet plan, regular exercise, physical fitness and happy state
of mind. Investment in wellness programmes benefits both
employer and employee.
2. Organise work:
One can plan next day’s work in advance. Cultivate the habit of sharing
problems with spouse and friends. Affection of family life is the best
medicine to fight stress.
3.Follow time management:
Employees must learn to complete work within the given time. When
time is divided properly to perform the given task, it is possible to
justice and finish the work as scheduled. more time will be spent in
performing important work.
4. Yoga and meditation:
Yoga and meditation provide physical benefits. They also offer spiritual
upliftment. Yoga and meditations had helped employees , at all levels, to
manage stress.
5.Cultivating positive attitude:
Some person are happy-go-lucky. They have a positive attitude. They have a
positive attitude .they always prefer to look at the brighter side of life. Such
persons can manage stress well.
6. Networking
Networking is the process of building and maintaining positive relationship with
co-workers and friend whose help may be needed to fight stress. A highly
popular networking
8.Practicing hobbies:
Hobbies fight depression and frustration. Practicing hobbies helps us to
relax and reduce stress. We remove hobbies when we enter into
professional careers. we must continue with them to lead stress free
life.
 Organizational measures for stress management
• Infrastructure improvement
Some firms have establishment health clubs where employees are checked
up regularly. Favourable work environment is useful for removing
employees stress. Employees should feel happy in the work premises and
get positive encouragement for more interest and initiative in the work
assign.
• Role clarity
A role is a general set of guidelines showing how persons holding certain
positions should behave. Stress is caused because of overlapping and
duplication of work. Each employees must know his role clearly. They must
understand their job thoroughly.
• Job enrichment
One of the major causes of stress is boredom and monotony where the
employee is expected to do the same job. Job enrichment makes the job
more interesting and challenging. Increased responsibility with higher
recognition and better opportunities for advancement keeps the
employees motivated.
• Career planning and counselling
A Career is a sequence of positions held by a person during the course of his
working life. Career planning stands for forward looking employment
policies of organisation. Every management must provide necessary
guidance and counselling to its employees in planning and developing their
career.
• Supportive organisational climate:
Organisational climate refers to the entire environment of the organisation.
Organisational climate represents: joint decision making, clear
communication, friendly conversation, emotional support reward etc. In such
a pleasant organisational climate, stress certainly remains restricted.
• Stress control workshops:
Management can organise frequent workshops where the objective is to
control and reduce stress. Employees learn ways and means to overcome
stress
• Employee assistance programmes:
A number of programmes are arranged by the management to help employees
to reduce or prevent stress. Management also appoints counsellors to help
employees to deal with personal and family problems.
Counselling
INTRODUCTION
• The process that occurs when a client and counsellor set aside time in
order to explore difficulties which may include the stressful or
emotional feelings of the client.
• The act of helping the client to see things more clearly, possibly from
a different view-point.
• Counselling can enable the client to focus on feelings, experiences or
behaviour, with a goal to facilitating positive change.
• A relationship of trust.
 Some characteristics of Counselling are:
• Counselling is a communication between the counsellor and the counsellee. It's
an exchange of ideas between the two.
• Counselling is a process and not an advice giving procedure. It is a long-term
process 'and takes some time for the person(s) involved to understand the
problem and learn how to cope with it.
• Counselling is about clarifying and helping the counsellee to handle him or her in
the time of crisis and be able to meet the demands of life.
• Both professional and non-professional counsellors can provide counselling.
• Counselling is usually private and confidential so that the employee is free to'
speak out without a fear of retribution i.e. penalty from the employers.
• Counselling is beneficial to the organisation as it helps to solve problems relating
to both job and personal life of the employees; thus helping them perform better
on the job and also giving a more humane look to the organisation.
Types of Counselling

Participative
Directive Counselling
Counselling

Non Directive
Counselling
 Directive Counselling
• In this type of counselling the counsellor gives the full direction.
• The counsellor leads the session completely and this type of counselling fulfils the criteria of the
counsellor giving advice and reassurance.
• The counsellor listens to the counsellee and decides on behalf of the counsellee as to what should be
done. It also helps in releasing the emotional tension.
• But this form of counselling does not equip the counsellee person to handle similar situations in future
as no self - growth has taken place. The self - growth can be achieved when a, Development person tries
to look for the answers himself or herself with some help from someone; else.
• But, as stated earlier, in this case a person will always have to look towards someone else to advice and
'sort out the problems in future.
• All said and done, one should remember that in many cases advice acts as reassurance.
• In adverse conditions advice and reassurances act as morale boosters and in the long nm help on taking
a course of action to resolve the difficult situation.
 Non-Directive Counselling
• This type of counselling is counselee oriented.
• This means that the counsellor focuses on the counselee and his or her
problems without any sort of interference.
• The counsellor does not act as an advisor; rather the counsellor only listens
to the counselee, understands the problem but does not offers any
solutions.
• The counselee here has to the find the solution on his or her own. This type
of counselling helps in employee orientation as the employees are given a
chance to find their own solution.
• Thus they are prepared to handle at least similar kinds of problems in
future on their own.
Co-operative/Participative Counselling:
• This is a compromise between the above two extreme types of
counselling.
• It is a mutual contribution for diagnosing a problem, analyzing the
problem and then looking for a solution.
• It is a mutual counsellor - counselee relationship where both
participate to find a solution.
• Here an exchange of ideas takes place between the two.
• Both the participants provide a bit of knowledge, experience and
insight and thus it is a case of balanced compromise.