Stress and Depression - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages Coping and strategies have been presented for both individual efforts and the organizational intervention.
Among the mental impairments found at workplace stress and depression are most common. In psychology, stress is a threat or demand or any other event or circumstances that compel someone to cope to the changed positions. It is quite common to say that stresses are unavoidable and significant part of one life. They are of various intensities; for instance the lower intensity ones can be such as family argument, a traffic jam or a withering comment by one's employer and or the higher ones could be fear of death during wartimes or the demise of a close relative. (Hancock and Desmond, 2000)
Reactions of different people to stress differ widely depending on their different family and cultural backgrounds, their temper at the time, their individual experiences, and on other strains present at the same time. It is usual to observe that the daily life and lighter stress are easily dealt with by people, however when problematic issues arise earlier than they could be solved, it may overload ones adaptive capacity, thus leading to depression, chronic ailments and anxiety. (Understanding stress and workplace stress, 2009)
As elucidates by Cunningham (2000) the present theoretical models in this regard put forward various passageways, though inconsistent in negligible aspects, in which disease or illness may be influenced by stress. The related literature determines stress as a process when a person realizes that his adaptive capacities are insufficient or too demanding to absorb the unexpected environmental changes. As stated by Marshall et al. (2000) stress is considered as an intrinsically psychosomatic progression, within such models. It is for this reason that more emphasis is placed on the psychology of stress. However, it has been realized that physical stress, independent of psychological mechanisms, may influence health, for instance longer exposure to excessive temperatures.
Figure 1: Adopted from Figure 2.1 Marshall et al. (2000)
The American Institute of Stress (2008) describes the Physical effects of Stress as follows:
Figure 2: Adopted from the American Institute of Stress (2008)
Theoretical Perspectives: Three models of stress research
While the research is inundated with diverse definitions of stress, most fall into one of three categories: stimulus definitions, transactional (or interactive) definitions, and response definitions. Stimulus-oriented theories view stress as a force residing within the stimulus provided by the individual's environment (Elliot & Eisdorfer, 2002). Aspects of the environment that increase demands upon the individual impose stress upon him or her.
The interactive theories emphasize the characteristics of the individual as the major moderating mechanism between the forces of the environment and the responses they invoke many theorists of this tenet further contend that it is actually a transactional approach. Not only does the individual mediate the impact of the environmental stimulus upon responses, but in addition, the perceptual, cognitive, and physiological characteristics of the individual become a notable component of the environment in this person-environment transaction (Cox & MacKay, 2001; Lazarus, 2001). ...Download file to see next pagesRead More