Soziale Bedingungen psychischer Belastungen: Flexibilität, Individualität und Prekarität

Summary Flexibility, individuality and insecurity: how social conditions mediate the psycho logical effects of new forms of work The media frequently report the increasing prevalence of mental illness, e nthusiastically supporting psychiatric experts’ views that many illnesses have societal causes. Hectic lifestyles and stress stand out as causes of such illnesses. In this paper, Ueli Mader and Hector Schmassmann investigate the social conditions associated with mental illness. Although a direct causal link cannot be scientifically proven, societal changes have far-reaching consequences for people’s mental and spiritual health. Amongst these changes, i ndividualisation and flexibilisation are having profound effects, which are expressed in individuals’ lifestyles and in the organisation of work. The d ebate into how far flexibilisation leads to precarity is controversial. Whether precarity results from flexibilisation depends on the resources available to each individual which is also tied to his or her cultural situation. In western industrial countries today, people must be themselves if possible. They need to adapt to rapid change. Flexibility stands out as the new economic imperative. The forces of the market economy push individuals to undertake p art-time work, short-term contracts and mini-jobs. On one hand enterprises widen their freedom, on the other hand collective agreements are weakened, with the aim of raising the efficiency of production. Some portray this flexibility as the possibility to strengthen entrepreneurial capabilities. Others c riticise the contraction of social cohesion by pointing out how mental strain has i ncreased. Social insecurity increases even in the case of rich societies. Regulated working conditions are eroded, affecting ever increasing numbers of people. Until the mid-1970s a social compromise was valid for most wage earners. Politically, liberalism dominated. It treated capital and labour as of equal worth. Since the end of the 1980s an Anglo-Saxon influenced market liberalism displaced this understanding. It gave greater weight to capital than l abour, dissolved social rules and legitimised social inequality. In this way, individuals are thrown more on their own means. They dread their future and suffer from fear. Many withdraw or, on the contrary, grasp these opportunities with enthusiasm. One possible outcome is depression. This is illustrative of the difficulty of being oneself. Added to this is the declining influence of influential institutions, like family and school, which mediate norms and values. This is how the individual is more thrown on his or her own means and responsible for success, which is all the more out of reach of those