1. Looks to me they missed a major category of stress.

   Social:
   Racism, sexism, trans & homophobia, religious & anti-religious bigotry, class discrimination …

   I also thought that disempowerment in the workplace was recognised as a major cause of stress and ill health.

   Would I be right in deducing from the ‘better living through chemistry’ box that drug companies had a hand in preparing this graphic? Or is it simply a reflection of the worldviews of the cited sources (also heavily influenced by drug companies)?

   (BTW, an Australian study from the late 90s that I have been unable to locate found that bus drivers experienced the most work related stress of the twenty or so employment categories examined).

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2. Another shortcoming of this chart is that the ‘stress busters’ are all pretty passive and mostly seem to presume that the locus of the stressor lies within the stressed person.

   Point 5 seems particularly lame when you consider where the phrase “Just say no” comes from and the amount of success *that* had.

   Are the corporate lab coats trying to tell us that stress is caused by a deficiency of serotonin yet?

   How about the following stress busters?
   Community building.
   Workplace organisation.
   Social activism.
   Preventing or avoiding environmental degradation and pollutants.
   Pretty much anything that empowers you to fight the external causes of stress rather than simply bowing beneath them.

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3. Here’s a nice essay from a few years ago by Peggy Orenstein about the factoid that stress causes all ills: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29wwlnlede-t.html

   I suppose the infographic is reposted to provoke discussion? To make the point that any infographic-interwebs-meme-ish thing that ends in better living through chemistry + yoga + “just say no” should be scrutinized for its source and subject to critical appraisal and social critique?

   “Stress” is not a condition in any version of the DSM or ICD, except in the guise of stress reactions/adjustment disorders such as PTSD, as far as I know, and the named drugs aren’t licensed by the FDA or any other body to treat “stress.” Insofar as some SSRIs are approved for PTSD, nothing that this infographic talks about has to do with PTSD, to lump the stressors of daily life and PTSD together is to promote some major indication creep.

   I found another infographic with a completely different set of most and least stressful occupations. Philosopher is comfortably nestled down in the least stressful list. So I suppose that, even if I feel super-stressed-out by the call to critique all the random infographics on the interwebs, I should contextualize that and realize that I’m not nearly as stressed out as real estate agents (other list) or military generals (this list).

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   • to lump the stressors of daily life and PTSD together is to promote some major indication creep.

     Excellent point.

     Maybe its my imagination but I’m getting the impression that there is another big push in the media right now to whip up indication creep around the issue of teen depression and suicidality – as if kids aren’t already overmedicated with drugs of very dubious value.

     It’s a bit of a shame that Orenstein seems to feel that psychological distress is more blameworthy than physical disease. Seems to me she’s buying into the very paradigm she critiques.

     From her article:

     Freudians, too, counseled that infertility was psychological, the result of maternal ambivalence

     Jeez, is there anything that guy didn’t dump on women?
     I blame his mother of course ;).

     (BTW, I’ve got a bit of a bee in my bonnet over the contemporary feminist use of the word ‘trigger’. To me this is another form of PTSD indication creep (I’m not suggesting sexual assault does not cause PTSD, just that the way ‘trigger’ is often used tends to equate distress about certain topics of discussion with PTSD flashbacks). I’d love to see an IJFAB article taking this on – even if it is to justify it).

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