Mental Stress Not Only In Business

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31339, 8 April 1967, Page 20

Mental Stress Not Only In Business

“In my practice the freezing-worker suffers as much from eating too much meat and drinking too much whisky as the evecutive,” said Dr. E. Geiringer, secretary of the New Zealand Medical Association, addressing a seminar in Christchurch.

“Executives cannot claim any preeminence of illness from mental stress. I worked as a locum doctor in the Shetland Islands, a very simple society, and there the incidence of mental stress illness was the same as it is In New Zealand.”

Four speakers, the Boman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch (the Most Rev. B. P. Ashby), Professor R. A. M. Gregson, Dr. Geiringer, and Mr E. A. Crothall, addressed the seminar on “Living an Executive’s Life.” Members of the panel spoke for an hour each, and then replied to questions. The seminar was conducted by the New Zealand Institute of Management “There are two views of psychological stresses,” said Professor Gregson, professor of psychology at the University of Canterbury. “There are people who are genuinely and recognisably sick because of social stresses, and individuals who have learned the wrong responses to social stresses.”

He said executives were reluctant to talk about their own health because the things they were likely to suffer from were not well-defined, and because by the time the illness had .manifested itself they had already been ill for some time.

Professor Gregson said that to avoid illness executives must know how to make decisions and how to communicate them. “You can have a subjective fatigue which precludes continuing one sort of work but permits beginning another sort immediately.” Bishop Ashby said there were seven qualities needed to be a successful executive — willpower, courage, knowledge of the subject and self, initiative, discipline, blend of humanity - charm - humour, power to reflect, and concern for others. “I have observed businessmen walking to work in the morning and this would seem a good time to reflect. If a man recognises the need to to reflect no matter how busy hie may be.” Dr. Geiringer gave his own recipe for reflection—lying in. the bath. Bishop Ashby said, executives too often took their worries home to their wives and their home life suffered in eoneequece.

“If the husband confides in his wife she will develop with him as his responsibility as

an executive grows during the years. An older man Should have acquired sufficient competence to enable him to devote more time to his wife when their family has grown up. “In New Zealand there are probably no grounds flor distinguishing between executives and anyone else, physically,” said Dr. Geiringer. "This is partly because executives are much the same sort of person as anyone else and partly because New Zealand social groups are blurred.

The idea that executives are different from anyone else should be discouraged as this itself could lead to illness. “If you counted up the figures of coronary incidence you would find a slight excess among executives—but the problem of coronaries is general,” he said. Mr Crothall, the managing director of a Christchurch firm, was asked what right a firm had to concern itself with the private life of an employee. “It has very little right but

it has a responsibility to take an interest in him, not the right to intrude,” he said. “When an executive is seeking staff he must know, and have written down, exactly what skills he wants. When the job includes duties of entertainment, the capabilities of the wife are also important, but I do not agree with selecting staff on the personality of their wives,” he said. The Rev. R. A. Lowe, vicar of St. Barnabas’ Church, Fendalton, was chairman of the seminar.