What stresses us out at work? Episode 78

Monika Rachtan
Hi Monika Rachtan, I'd like to welcome you very warmly to another episode of After First Patients. It turns out that even 40% of us experience bullying at work. I'll be talking to a psychotherapist today about what stresses us out the most in our jobs, and that's Michal Krysiak. A very warm welcome to you.

Michał Krysiak
Good morning, hello.

Monika Rachtan
A psychotherapist with a lot of experience in business. So tell me what level of employees are most likely to come to you and talk about having problems at work, Problems just related to bullying, problems that cause them stress, anxiety disorders.

Michał Krysiak
In fact, these problems that you have mentioned affect all social groups, all professional groups. You could say that they are very democratic, because teachers, for example, talk to me about these problems. Civil servants tell me, doctors tell me. I also work with managers and, in general, with corporate or business employees at various levels and, in principle, at every level such problems can arise. They do, of course, vary a little depending on where you are, because it will be different for a specialist, for example, who is only accountable to his superiors. Only, however, this is in inverted commas. And differently will have a middle manager, who not only has a responsibility to his employees, whom he employs, but also has a responsibility to his bosses. He is, you might say, a bit between a hammer and an anvil. Then again, these bosses very high up also have their responsibilities, because, for example, they will already really be accountable to investors at the top of the organisation.

Monika Rachtan
Yes. And it just seems very stressful when we have someone above us, when we have someone below us, and we know that the way we do our job, the jobs of people who are in lower-level positions de facto also depend on that. This is a very big responsibility, because we are responsible, as it were, for them, for their lives, for how their family will live. And this can also generate very high stress. And here it's not even about some relationships, about bullying, about relationships, it's just that we are responsible for other people.

Michał Krysiak
Yes, it's the workload that I think of when I think of middle managers. It can actually be of three types. Firstly, it's a burden simply of responsibilities, which very often in the current business model, in the current business models, are simply too much for one person. And it is such a burden related to time pressure, The pressure of tasks to be performed can also be a burden related to how complex our work is. That is, we have problems to solve that are very difficult in terms of content and very difficult simply intellectually to grasp, and we have to somehow get through it. And we also have this emotional burden, which is connected precisely with the responsibility for other people, for relations within the team, for getting along with different groups of people among themselves. And these are the three burdens that managers have to deal with somehow. Anyway, very interesting research comes from another source, for example from NASA. NASA studied, probably in the 1980s, if I remember correctly, the workload of its pilots, and they looked at just the emotional workload, the workload of the multitude of tasks and the workload of the intellectual demands, how that affected the pilots' performance. And it turned out.

Monika Rachtan
A special group very special, I would say.

Michał Krysiak
Yes, but it's not a bad illustration and we can extrapolate it to other professional groups. It turns out that increasing the number of tasks works up to a certain point and that indeed this pilot is able to get by. At a certain point he starts making more and more mistakes. At a certain point, he starts to get more and more overwhelmed, until we reach a point where he is no longer able to perform any task and the system simply falls apart.

Monika Rachtan
And do you think it's the same for people who work full-time in corporations? That, however, this amount of tasks, this overwhelm of responsibility, causes some people you have examples of where they just switch off and are not able to get up in the morning and go to work. There's just something keeping them in that house, in that bed, that they're not able to open their eyes and face, and that it happens so day to day that you know, I imagine on Thursday they're at work, on Friday they have some stressful day and they say on Friday morning no, no, I'm just not going to go.

Michał Krysiak
It doesn't happen overnight. This stress and this strain builds up over time. And it's hard to really predict which moment in a manager's life is the breaking point. I remember working with one person just out of a large global business. This man had to introduce a product to Europe that was worth several hundred million euros in its first year of sales. It was a really big responsibility for financial success, but also for the product, because it was, you could say, highly technical. And he was a manager with a lot of experience. He had already launched more than one product. Unfortunately, when this task fell on him, or he accepted it, what happened in the company was that he could not count on the support of, for example, the legal department or the financial department. Apparently this support was there, but not the kind of support he needed and he felt that all the responsibility was on him. And because this coincided with various problems in the family home, there was a moment where you could say colloquially that this man had a nervous breakdown.

Monika Rachtan
What does this breakdown look like?

Michał Krysiak
It just looks like you are unable to go to work in the way you described. In this case it also looked like, apart from such symptoms of not being able to mobilise for anything, there were, for example, psychotic symptoms, i.e. an enormous fear that something might happen, something that we, being in a kind of good mood, know is practically unreal, but this man was very afraid of it. You could say that these were just such delusional, paranoid symptoms and for him it was the whole world. That's how it looked like. And it also took several months to get this person together, so to speak colloquially.

Monika Rachtan
But tell me, did this man realise on his own that he had a very serious problem and approached you, as I understand it, a psychotherapist? And you know, he opened up such a flip-flop in his mind that okay, I'm not going to figure this out on my own I have to go to a specialist because it's not possible. Because, you know, people do too. That moment of realisation and coming to terms with it, maybe not even coming to terms with it, but that kind of catch, that kind of catch in your head that okay, something's going wrong, I've got a problem, I've got to go to a specialist for help because I can't handle it on my own. Especially even with people who are at such a high professional level as this. I can't carry it, I such a super boss in general I've launched so many products, I've made so many millions for my company And I now need to go to some psychotherapist because I can't cope with my super great job that I've always loved and that has given me so much happiness.

Michał Krysiak
Unfortunately, it is usually the case that something has to happen first. It is that moment of breakdown to go, to reach out for help and for support. I would very much like people to reach out for support when it is not yet that critical moment, but when they feel the problem is growing. I remember once a training course I had just done for a company on the subject of workload and dealing with so-called workload. One of the managers asked me this question at the time. He says I have to do a restructuring of the department at European level. On the one hand I really want to do it, but on the other hand I feel it will be a big workload. What can I do about it?

Monika Rachtan
This is good behaviour, This is good timing.

Michał Krysiak
I thought I would just give him a hug for asking the question, because it was the perfect time to start working on it. And it was a training, of course, so we couldn't do deep individual work. But already in this short training we were able to talk about what he could do for himself, how he could reorganise his family life, for example, to give himself a little bit more time at work, but also a little bit more support in his family. He could also think about how he will also start such a corporate expression to manage his stress. But what can he do then, when this stress is disrupting him, to get it off his chest somehow? Maybe he likes this kind of sport, Maybe he likes another kind of sport? Maybe he'll make sure he talks to someone in a similar position who's already been through such a process. I'm thinking about the fact that, for example, we psychotherapists have a very good support system, so that I, for example, have my regular supervision, where I discuss the supervisor, my working methods. And of course the supervision is for my clients, for my patients.

Michał Krysiak
This is a double security for them, that the psychotherapy process is going well, but also the supervision is for me, that is, my supervisor can see, for example, if I am not getting too involved. Whether, for example, working with a client doesn't burden me too much.

Monika Rachtan
So de facto you are also sort of in a bit of therapy all the time, that you have all the time.

Michał Krysiak
Not really in therapy, but the supervisor watches over the therapy process that I am doing and also observes me and can point out to me, for example, that hmm, here something is moving you a lot, something is weighing you down a lot, what do you want to do about it and are you able to continue working? I also have a big support system in the form of my psychotherapist friends. We are, for example, from the same school, so we spent four years in school with each other in the school of psychotherapy. We know each other like horses and I can chat. Whenever something gets me pregnant, I can talk to a person who knows what life is like, what this work is like. At the same time, I still benefit from the fact that there isn't much competition between us.

Monika Rachtan
Well it's just that there's no rivalry, because I thought to myself, for example, a manager who works in some corporation. It's difficult for him to go to his colleague in another department and talk about problems in his team. Whether with his job or about his attitudes, which are some, let's say, not fully understood by him. Because you don't know if the other colleague from behind three desks won't go to the boss who's higher up and say hey, listen, Wojtek's not coping any more as if, you know, he's telling me he's starting to get unstuck from everything. Well something has to be done about it. But it's terribly difficult to build that kind of trust within one individual, some or one company. So I guess you'd have to have a colleague from another corporation, preferably one that deals with totally different things, and then talk to him about such things. Because even if it's a similar job description or a similar industry, it's also with these rotations and with what happens in such a corpo that it's very often the case that you work with someone today. Yes, because he works in another company and you meet at a conference. In three days' time he knocks on your door and says Hi, I'm your boss from today and it's terribly difficult.

Michał Krysiak
This often happens, and young employees who are just starting out in business are often unaware of this and are very surprised when such situations occur. I remember such a situation, because I too worked for many years in corporations. I remember such a conversation with my boss at the time, who was no longer my boss, because we had changed paths, business paths. And I said something like, you know, I listen, I don't know if I would like to go further in this marketing direction, or maybe something else. And he said to me Listen, leave such considerations to yourself. Don't talk about it out loud. I say But why? After all, these are normal human considerations. And he says Yes, but if someone hears them and says them at some meeting where there will be, for example, a consideration of which man to put where. And he'll say that you're thinking about it or that you have doubts, then that could already be misconstrued. And that was such a wake-up call for me really, that you have to be careful what you say and that people live under such a burden that they are very careful who they talk to, what topics they talk about.

Michał Krysiak
And I was fortunate to have worked for many years in such organisations, which could be called green islands. That is, the company's revenue was very good, the workload was not too heavy. And it was a place where you could really form super relationships with other people. Having somewhere in the back of your mind that someone might become your boss at some point, for example. But it really was the kind of relationships that I still have today after the various changes in my working life, But I also hear that the moment this green island ends, the fight for turnover starts. Budget cuts start, staff cuts start. That ends the nice atmosphere and people say to me, for example Listen, I don't know who I can talk to anymore and I don't know what I can say freely. And that is a gigantic burden.

Monika Rachtan
Because you can't be yourself de facto in that job. You're constantly thinking, you're constantly looking, you're constantly pivoting back and checking to see if whoever's behind you, if it's a person who could be a bad influence on your career path in some way. But, you know, I was thinking to myself some more. A picture came to my mind from, say, 25 years ago. The ladies were sitting in the workplace, drinking coffee, then smoking a cigarette in the room. Well, today, fortunately, it is no longer possible and absolutely no one is encouraged to do so, But it was like that. They sat, drank coffee, smoked a cigarette, read the newspaper to each other, chatted about nonsense. They knew everything about each other. They knew the name of their husband, their aunt, their grandmother. They discussed every single one of their problems in that room where they sat over coffee. And they all played to one goal, so that the employees would be fine and the boss would know as little as possible. And these relationships looked completely different. These people often met after work too. Just like that, they honestly knew their families.

Monika Rachtan
And today there are corpo meetings where again you don't know what you can say. You'd better not have too many drinks, because you'll say something you don't want to say and it can end badly. If you have too many drinks, you can also be taken the wrong way, so you turbo guard yourself so that absolutely nothing bad happens. You don't want to go to the meeting at all, but you go. You put on your most expensive jacket so that everyone can see that you are a manager who can afford everything. Then you go on some holiday together, which you also go on because you have to. And it's all living in some kind of weird bubble, in some kind of world that doesn't really exist. Inside you are a completely different person, and outside you have to fit in with this corporation.

Michał Krysiak
I would say that there are corporations and corporations, there are companies and companies and even within one company there are very different departments. And it may indeed be the case, as you say, that for your own security and also for the success of your career you have to adopt some kind of facade, you have to step into some kind of role. And I was fortunate that when I started my business life like that, I ended up in a department where people were really nice, warm, even though it was a corporation. Very accommodating. Anyway, the reason I remember my thoughts is that I first worked at university before my business experience. And I thought that's what my career was going to be like. And when I went from university to business, I was panicked, because I imagined exactly this business, as you outlined, that there would have to be some kind of facade there, that you would have to pretend that I had to come in the most fashionable clothes, that in general what I was wearing was just where would I show up in that? And it turned out to be quite the opposite. It turned out that people are normal, nice, welcoming, that once, when we got on a train together and went on a business trip, we talked very politely at first, because we didn't know each other very well yet.

Michał Krysiak
Everyone took out their book and opened it there, because it was on the train. And then we exchanged two sentences and we realised that we had spent four hours on that train and we closed the books at the same moment where we opened them. And that was great. But also I know that there are places, and I've experienced this in the past too, where it's absolutely impossible, where you come in and you have to be able to. In small talk you have to be able to speak with a smile glued to your face. You have to guard what not to say and what to say. And this is actually fatal to your wellbeing. Well, because how much tension can you live under? It's a constant internal tension, some constant internal striving and such a life of control. Yeah, and that's a great platform for anxiety disorders to just develop. Or maybe some depression. Sorry, I'm speaking so colloquially, jokingly, but it's not a funny subject at all.

Monika Rachtan
I think that these people, being just in such a bind, also often don't realise these problems that affect them at all, because they drown them out so much and kind of don't allow that voice of reason to come to their head and take them into consideration, that this problem is getting worse and worse and there's no help. But listen, I started with the fact that 40% people are experiencing bullying. Tell me if you also have people coming to you who are just recounting these typical situations where someone is bullying them at work, where someone is specifically working against them.

Michał Krysiak
Yes, and these are people from very different backgrounds, not just business. These are also people who are from the so-called budget sector. Because bullying is also very democratic and can happen anywhere. I have worked with people who have already gone through this bullying and, for example, decided to flee the workplace, or ended up on sick leave, for example, because they were no longer able to function well. And each of these stories is so really heartrending. Before I was a psychotherapist and I heard about bullying in business or in the workplace in general, I would imagine that it was just very high stress. And when I talk to people who have experienced bullying I see that it's more than just stress. It's like all their confidence and wellbeing. It's just like in the film it's eroding, it's like it's falling apart and then it takes many, many months to get it together, colloquially speaking.

Monika Rachtan
What behaviours do these people experience?

Michał Krysiak
Very different. There is bullying, the very direct kind. When, for example, a superior ridicules his subordinate in front of people, when he criticises his work in an absolutely unfair way. And whatever that employee delivers, it's always just going to be a dent in the floor. But there is also this kind of white glove bullying, very much so subtle.

Monika Rachtan
Probably the worst?

Michał Krysiak
Yes. That's because if something is visible and it's easy to name it, then you can also address it somehow, arm yourself somehow, react somehow. And if there is this so-called white-glove bullying, then for a very long time you don't know that something is actually happening. Well, because see, everyone needs validation, needs attention. And such a basic thing, when I give or you give attention to me, is that, for example, today, when we met in the studio, you came to me and said hello. No, because we didn't know each other well before. So I already felt noticed by you. On the other hand, sometimes people tell me about such a situation when they enter a meeting, the boss greets everyone and somehow skips them. No. Or, for example, yes, he greets them out of politeness, says good morning, but sweeps them away with his eyes as if he were sweeping a piece of furniture. No. So how do you react to this? Such a person who experiences this thinks hmm, did this happen? Didn't it happen?

Michał Krysiak
Maybe I was just thinking. Well, but when it happens again and again, you start to feel that there is something really wrong. Your wellbeing goes down. Your self-esteem goes down because being overlooked, unnoticed, overlooked is aggravating. But how do you react to that? Well what am I going to say, the boss is not looking at me.

Monika Rachtan
But you know, it's like that in general. Seemingly so little, and so much for that person, that other people sitting on the sidelines can even say Jesus, what's her point? Well he looked at her. Well mother, well he looked at me too, and it is so aggravating for that person that at that moment his life ends. De facto, that this, as you said, this confidence, this competence, all of this suddenly disappears and I such a person is left with this totally alone in the middle, still when he is misunderstood by his co-workers, or he can't say or about his feelings, well he's constantly biting at it. But you know, I wonder what can be done in that situation. Because like you said she can say why the boss is looking at me or why the boss didn't shake my hand, Well she'll probably get some kind of answer. I rather think it won't change much in her life. But on the other hand, see, there are also those. I have such experiences with companies where clearly employees experience bullying.

Monika Rachtan
They evidently inform the HR department. And nothing happens. And there is an environment where there are people, where people are being bullied. Some people leave because they can't cope with it and say okay, sorry. Some people go and say listen, our team is falling apart. We're being bullied and the staff don't react. And what do these people even feel at that point? See what a paradox. In a lot of companies it's like that, employees come and say we're being bullied, someone's doing us wrong, and other people don't react, they just say well tough, well go away if you don't like it. And in that situation.

Michał Krysiak
There is a gigantic sense of injustice and helplessness. A great deal depends firstly on the corporate culture. Often these mature and healthy corporate cultures have anti-bullying procedures in place. There are places where you can come forward and where you can simply say what you are experiencing. On the other hand, it really all ends with people, it starts and ends with people. Yes, procedures with procedures. I have observed this. Even in a single company, it can happen that one reported issue is swept under the carpet because it happened to one person and not another. A second reported issue is dealt with very quickly and unquestioningly. The bully simply ends his or her career at that company.

Monika Rachtan
I remember a situation like this. I was told about it by a colleague, that they had a job satisfaction assessment every six months at work. And that generally everyone always did. And of course it was anonymous, but it wasn't like you got a piece of paper in your hand and then you put it in a ballot box, it was done in such a way that it came to you on an email and you had to fill it in there. But supposedly it was anonymous and everybody knew that you had to tick everything is great and nothing happens at all. Whereas she was new, so she wrote what she thought. And I remember her saying that afterwards her boss called her in for an interview and says to her You know, you're supposedly doing badly here. She asks But what do you mean, how do you know? And she says You know, I didn't make the connection at the first moment at all with the fact of the survey, because for me the fact that it was anonymous was as certain as simply. Well, someone wrote to me that she was anonymous. And she had a very unpleasant conversation with this boss. And so I thought wow, this is the pinnacle.

Monika Rachtan
The stress in general, what she must have been going through. And the height of rudeness by this employer really, that he was sharing this information with a manager or management. And I wonder what kind of stress this girl must have been going through. I mean my colleague told me that for a year she just couldn't. Get up from the stress in that job.

Michał Krysiak
It is indeed the case that large corporations, when they do these types of employee satisfaction surveys, pay a lot of attention to ensuring that this survey system is truly anonymous. And managers get aggregate results, aggregated at such a level that it is impossible to deduce, even infer somehow. What opinion an individual employee might have had. Whereas certainly the kind of stories that you're saying happen too, and I think that actually cuts out any possibility of working in such a place with trust and freedom. Yes. Because if someone was brave enough to declassify things that were supposed to be secret. Then how can such an institution or such an employer be trusted? In all other situations, on the other hand, I would still refer to what we were talking about just now, about this bullying, this white-glove bullying and these subtle glances from the boss. It's never just one behaviour. For example, overlooking someone, sweeping your eyes over someone as if they don't exist. These are also such subtle things. For example, making it a little bit more difficult for you to take a holiday. But I will give a reason that is as acceptable as possible.

Michał Krysiak
Rational is that appreciation of others, and I'll leave you out, it's that I'm going to criticise, of course, very substantively another of your projects and such white-glove bullying is very difficult to grasp, and it's also just as damaging and just as eroding.

Monika Rachtan
Why are these people bullying?

Michał Krysiak
Hmm good question. I haven't encountered a person coming to me for coaching or therapy and saying you know, I'm bullying, I'd like to deal with it or I'd like to deal with it.

Monika Rachtan
Well great, that would be extra.

Michał Krysiak
It comes from such very human and small behaviours, that is, for example, jealousy. I see that my employee is very good, he is a super professional in his field.

Michał Krysiak
I can't let him get knocked out, so I have to keep him low enough. Motives of jealousy can creep into these situations, motives of defending your Position this can happen in any team. You could say that there is a certain division of roles. And if a team is dysfunctional, a bit like we sometimes talk about dysfunctional families, there are certain roles into which people are forced or cast in that team. And there is, for example, the role of the scapegoat, where all the misdemeanours and all the failures from a given team are thrust upon one person, who becomes such a scapegoat. When there is a scapegoat, it is known that there will also be a golden child next to it, that is, someone absolutely predestined to succeed, to succeed. So these mechanisms are very different. And there is also the possibility that we are dealing with a boss, a superior, a female boss who has a narcissistic trait. Of course, I don't diagnose them directly, but when I work with a person who has experienced bad treatment at work and they tell me about the treatment they have received, I can suspect that their superior and his/her superior have very strong traits, for example narcissistic ones.

Monika Rachtan
And tell me, who bullies more often women or men?

Michał Krysiak
I have no such data. I have not checked the research on this. I would say that these methods are different. I think we're not going to sort of push this thesis here that we're all the same. I know we're going to go into stereotypes a little bit, but well I could say that women who commit bullying do it in a different way than men. They do it more subtly, more sophisticatedly, perhaps more often with white gloves. Less so directly.

Michał Krysiak
We can talk about stereotypes here or evolutionary things, for example. Where did this come from? If men were able to gain an advantage with physical strength. Women were the ones who did not have access to so much physical strength. They had to resort to ways. Yes. Well, but that's kind of the conversation and about evolution and a bit about stereotypes, which can sometimes be true.

Monika Rachtan
So now I remembered a series that I watched on one of the streaming platforms just about King and Courtiers. And I remember these intrigues that yes guys, if they had a problem, they gave each other a two-face and just solved it. And the women created these intrigues and these situations that, de facto, practically wouldn't have to exist at all if there wasn't a need to get something Just in that courtier environment of theirs. And it seems to me that this also illustrates a little bit just such a corporation that, however, guys, if they have a problem, it's easier for them to just tell each other, to explain it in some way, even to throw it away even in an uncultured, uncontrolled way. Unethical. But women tend to be scheming somewhere and have some intrigue. And these very behaviours of theirs are a bit different from men. Men probably wouldn't want to think so much to come up with such a strong plot to make someone else lose their job, for example. But that's my thesis.

Michał Krysiak
I don't know if I would separate it that much. And I've witnessed, and I've also been told about situations that, or the procedures that the guys had planned, how to get rid of the competition here, and that was. These were actions planned for many months. On the other hand, I think it should also be said, because I would not like to make such a one-sided exposé here. That there are both unpleasant and uncool situations in business. But there are also people. People who are incredible leaders, who are people you want to work for. And who take their employees under their wing. And not only do they defend them, for example, from some external injustice or hostile behaviour, but they also somehow pave their career path, take care of their development. There are such people in business too, and they are also in very competent businesses. Also, everything again starts and ends with the person. The environment we are in and the culture of a company or the culture of a particular school, of a particular office, can promote some behaviours and extinguish others. If the corporate culture is wise, mature and good and promotes good behaviour, then employees in such a place are better able to engage at work.

Michał Krysiak
They feel safe, and if they feel safe, for example, they can allow themselves to be creative.

Monika Rachtan
Well, that's what I thought about, that in a situation where the employee feels safe, he also just comes to this employer with an idea. He's not afraid to say that he would do something differently, that he would do something new, because he knows that it won't be judged so negatively, it will be listened to more and subjected to such a fair assessment. Because, of course, not every employee's idea has to be great and the boss doesn't always have to talk about extra. In general what a great employee you are Agnieszka. We're definitely going to do it. We'll implement it because you brought it. That's just what's important. And I think we all have the right to do that. I mean not probably just certainly everyone has the right to have their idea considered and it can be rejected or accepted. But it's the consideration that's important and that's what gives us such power.

Michał Krysiak
Yes. And here we come back again to that first, most important, first, simplest level of validation, which is that attention that we can give to the other person, which is exactly what you said, that I will take your idea and I will take the time to review it, think about it and talk it through with you. As the boss, I can decide that we're going to go a different way, that I'm not going to implement this strategy, but I can do it in a way that clips your wings. But I can also do it in a way where you get back to your tasks and you get back and you continue to want to work there.

Monika Rachtan
And you'll also have the courage to come to me two months later, when another idea comes into your head, and put it on my desk and say This time maybe let's talk about it, because it's also so important not to lose that enthusiasm and creativity.

Michał Krysiak
Yes. I would very much like bosses, managers, female managers to devote, devote more attention to learning, you could say, emotional intelligence. I think this book by Goldman emotional intelligence was published in Poland over 20 years ago, and I still see it in business. And not only in business. In everyday life too. When we have a big problem with dealing with emotions, people say, for example, that emotions have no place in business, that emotions are a bad counsellor. This is utter nonsense. How to unleash creativity and self-motivation in employees.

Monika Rachtan
If there is no emotion?

Michał Krysiak
If there is no emotion, you have to give people joy, the possibility of also having fun, a sense of security, because this is the place where this creativity arises. If an employee can experiment, an experiment has this in common that it can succeed and it can fail. And now, if such an experiment, for example, I don't know, a marketing campaign, doesn't work out, even though we had such a great idea, OK, that's hard, we accept the loss, clean up after ourselves and start with a new idea. And that's a great place to work, to grow, to create new ideas. Because if every mistake is made it is punished sternly. Badly that employee is treated. For example, ridiculed or mocked, he will never come up with a new idea again afterwards. And it happens in teams that we supposedly create new ideas, we supposedly are creative, but actually it's a new make-up for old stuff that has already been reheated 10 times.

Monika Rachtan
And I'd best hide under a blanket and keep my head down so that it doesn't accidentally fall on me that I'm the one who did something wrong or made something up. And what problems do people face when they run their businesses? I'm not thinking here of large corporations, that they run their corporations, but, for example, doctors who work on a contract basis. What are the most common burdens here and do they also come to the offices of psychotherapists?

Michał Krysiak
I'll admit that I haven't worked with doctors, although I've heard a lot of stories from my doctor friends about their work and, for example, they've told me themselves that they feel they are absolutely burnt out professionally. I think that in such. If we talk about doctors, for example, I think that on the one hand they are experiencing, they are experiencing such a conflict between the fact that they would like to do their job very well, that they would like to be close to their patients and really put their heart into this work. But on the other hand, the system in which they operate effectively makes this impossible. Because if there are, in short, too many patients per doctor and you can only take a moment to talk to them or make a diagnosis. Anyway, everyone is familiar with those doctor's appointments that take place in 15 minutes, of which 10 minutes is a pat on the computer. Well, because you have to fill in whether, or not, or report the thing properly. And there's just a moment left for that conversation, for that diagnosis. And that's not cool for the patient. But I think it's not cool for the doctor either. Well, I have, for example, this comfort in my work that when a client patient comes to me, the therapy session lasts 50 minutes and psychotherapy is a longer process, so I have time to get to know this client, client, to explore the biography, to explore the problem. Anyway, that's also what psychotherapy is about. But I imagine that when a practitioner who would like to get to know their client well, has to do it quickly and has to work out a system or rushes from one job to another to make a living, well, that's very burnout. Especially as these professions, such as teachers, doctors and therapists, are all close professions.

Monika Rachtan
But they are also seen as missionary professions. And I sort of feel that there is such a burden on doctors. What do you mean, the doctor won't see me? After all, I come with such an important, serious problem from the perspective of ordinary people, not doctors. Doctors don't get sick, they don't have holidays, they don't have families, they don't have situations where, for example, the doctor cancels appointments today because his child has fallen ill and he has to go to school to pick them up. In general in people's minds, like I waited two months for an appointment. Today the doctor is cancelling because he can't be at the surgery. Oh, I'm sure he's gone off with his representatives to do some kind of gig and that's why he's not accepting me In general, it's like for people this medical profession is so missionary and so this doctor has to be always and at every call. And, you know, when I think to myself that these people are facing this, it's very scary for me in general, what they must have in their heads. On the other hand, they are kind of a bit of a prisoner of their own profession.

Monika Rachtan
You know, they study so many years to do the job of a doctor. They get to the point where they have to talk about it openly. They earn really very good money, but they earn it with very hard work. And on the other hand, such a doctor, when, for example, he works in a hospital and still runs his practice. Again, it's like you can come to him and ask Well, but listen, Tomek, why don't you fuck off with this practice? Why don't you stay on your contract, work those 8 hours at the clinic and live a normal life, and he replies But you know, the loan for the surgery, the lease instalment, for the equipment I've equipped the surgery with, Well, the car, because you need to drive something. A house, Well because I knew I was going to be a doctor, I decided on a big loan. The kids are studying abroad, so I have to pay for all that. And it was kind of cool when I decided to do it, because I was 3 years out of my specialty. I was doing great, I liked my job, I had a nice team. I didn't know that in 10 years' time I was going to hate this job and what a big burden it was.

Michał Krysiak
What you're talking about is this kind of lifestyle inflation. That is to say, the better I get paid at work, the more my financial status increases, the more comfortable my lifestyle becomes, but it needs to be fueled by money. Yes, I remember a conversation not with a doctor but with a lawyer who worked for a very large legal corporation and you could say he was also very financially successful. And he says to me But I don't have a sense of financial security. I say But how so, I was honestly surprised myself. And then, as if in the process of therapy, we started looking at these finances of his. And it turns out that, yes, the earnings were very high, but the liabilities, exactly as you said, were also huge, because one loan, another loan, a third loan, because one child's school, another child's, because one nanny and another nanny for the third child. Well someone has to take care of the children while we are at work and busy making a career or making money. And indeed, when you put Income and Expenditure together. It turns out that we are living on a budget.

Michał Krysiak
Anyway, back to business, functioning on the fly is also a reason why people burn out professionally. And the current business model is that of the corporate world, the business world. It is about maximising profits. That is not the only business model available, because that business model can be to stabilise the company, it can be to stabilise employment, it can be to survive in times of crisis. It does not always have to be profit maximisation alone. Instead, this profit maximisation often takes place in such short-term periods. So, for example, we come in as a new CEO, as new management, we make cuts, we make big savings and in the short term we have actually increased profits and costs have come down. But it's all done practically on the fly. It would be safer if we were doing this business on an overlap, that is, if there were some stocks. If it were the case that we have people who are able to take on a bit more work when the situation arises, because they still have that capacity, and at the point where it's all running on empty, well, an emergency situation makes us patch it up with what?

Michał Krysiak
Well, this is most often patched up by throwing extra work onto the same or reduced number of people we have. That is to say, a company that functions in this way, functions not because of its business sense, but functions by sucking out those people who are at lower levels. And who are somehow being manoeuvred into working beyond their capabilities.

Monika Rachtan
We know that there are a lot of these problems in a corporation, even if you run your own one-person business. But listen, tell me in conclusion, I would like to create such a guide for people who are facing a lot of stress at work, who are being bullied, who are experiencing various disorders related to how their work and the people around them are, what to look out for and when to go to a specialist. When is the moment to reach out for professional help?

Michał Krysiak
The only criterion that suffices to go to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist, for example, is suffering. If I feel that I am unwell for some reason, that is really enough to reach out for this help. And I don't need to look for more justifications. People sometimes get worried and say God, what am I going to come with and what am I going to say? That I'm sad, that I'm unwell. Yes, that's exactly what you can come with.

Monika Rachtan
And then you work with it, tear it up and look for the cause.

Michał Krysiak
And then it turns out, for example, that the sadness with which the person comes, or the feeling of exhaustion or chronic fatigue, that it is not a random thing, it is not imaginary, but has its justification. And in therapy we work in this way to, for example, restore the person's feeling for body signals. It's an interesting and sad thing, too, that when we are under a very heavy stress load, we cut ourselves off from our own body, when we are under a very heavy workload. We start to ignore what our body is telling us. I often ask managers if you have had a situation where you have been at full capacity all day and you come home and your energy sinks, as if someone has pulled the plug on you? They say well, yes, all right, but it's not like this fatigue suddenly set in after 14 hours of work. It turns out that, consistently throughout their day, people have learned to ignore the symptoms of fatigue. It's the same with hunger, by the way. We didn't eat anything all day. Maybe we grabbed a candy bar on the run, and at 8pm, when we get home, we dash for the fridge.

Michał Krysiak
And it's also not that this hunger suddenly appeared at 8pm in the evening. It's that this has been consistently ignored throughout the day and such an episode from the body's signals means that people don't stop when they are tired. They don't stop when they are exhausted. Only a coarser situation has to arise. For example, depressive symptoms, insomnia, waking up at three o'clock in the morning and not being able to sleep any more until 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning. And only then is it such a signal that, gosh, you have to do something about yourself. It would be nice to take care of this wellbeing much, much earlier.

Monika Rachtan
I guess I am making an appeal for you to stop for a moment today and think about how your emotions are towards your work, towards your colleagues. I'm going to want to leave you, but also remember what Michael said, that everything starts and ends with people. And I think it's important to be those people to other people. My guest, but above all your guest, was Michal Krysiak, psychotherapist. Thank you very much for our conversation today.

Michał Krysiak
Thanks very much for the invitation.

Monika Rachtan
This was the programme First Patient. My name is Monika Rachtan and I invite you to subscribe to my channel.