Loosing the social purpose of work leads individuals to perform senseless work. This paper aims at analyzing the effect of current contradictions between modernization and expansion of labor and social precariousness on mental health. It begins by investigating this issue through a social and historical viewpoint, followed by showing international and Brazilian indicators that illustrate the above mentioned precariousness. Further on, the authors analyze critically the social model generated by targeting maximum competitiveness, which on behalf of an excellence that conjugates perfection and superiority fosters discrimination or exclusion of all those who in anyway unveil their human limits. The authors examine the current dominating paradigms of this model to identify its psychological impacts, highlighting illnesses related to occupational violence. They further stress the increase of psychic vulnerability in contexts of poverty and discuss social non-belonging and human ungrounding processes. They conclude by commenting on possibilities of reverting labor, nature, and social degradation.
work relations; work organization; mental health; mental exhaustion; precariousness
