Preventive Stress Management in Organizations

Preventive Stress Management in Organizations, Second Edition offers a comprehensive framework for creating healthy workplaces.

It begins by presenting the transactional relationship between individual and organizational stress. Each individual brings a peculiar pattern of responding to inevitable and necessary demands of work, and many experience psychological, behavioral, and medical forms of stress because of factors related to their work. Individuals and organizations can implement practices to reverse unhealthy stress (distress) and promote eustress, which stimulates growth and vitality.

Chapters examine individual and organizational sources of stress and their consequences; methods and instruments for diagnosing organizational and individual stress; ways to redesign work and improve professional relationships; and methods for managing demands and stressors. New findings from positive psychology are woven in. Methods designed to proactively enhance health and performance at work while averting the costs and discomfort of distress are explored and illustrated by examples drawn from healthy organizations.

Preventive stress management is a philosophy and set of principles grounded in public health, which organizational leaders and consultants can use to help their organization operate to its fullest potential. The approaches outlined in this book may be implemented by leaders in any organization.