Stress Management

Stress Management

1. What are the causes of stress to Phil’s life? Give evidence from the case to support your views.

According to the case, the causes of stress to Phil’s life are the nature of occupation (role-related stressor), work overload (work-related stressor), and family conditions.

In the case, Phil was a vice-president, and one of the three who might move to the top spot if the president died or retired. However, vice-president is a high-stress occupation. Vice-presidents have to handle many kinds of affairs in the company. What’s more, Phil was possible to be the president, so he didn’t allow himself to make any mistakes. In addition, “Phil had sixty people working for him, and three of them will be seriously considered for his position.” If Phil had any flows in his work, one of these three people will replace him. At that moment, promotion is a dream that can not be reached. So stress of Phil was extremely high at that period.

Secondly, work overload is one of the reasons. As we can know from the case: Phil worked six days a week, and he worked until eight or nine at night. This is related to his personalities. We can learn Phil is a perfect Type A, a workaholic. Type A is a person who devoted to work, highly competitive, and struggle to perform several tasks. The characteristics of workaholics are highly involved in work and high drive to succeed. These descriptions are really suitable for Phil. In a word, the one of causes of stress is work overload which related to his personalities.

Thirdly, pressure from Phil’s family is also a stressor. Phil really worried about one of his children. “The youngest is 20, a boy, a high school graduate who has spent the last couple of years, like a lot of his friends, doing enough odd jobs to stay in drugs and food. He tried to mean enough to him to keep Phil at home.” As we can see from the case, the youngest boy is not well-educated. This boy is Phil’s favorite child. He cared about this child’s future. He stayed up nights trying to figure out how to educate this boy. Therefore, family problem is also a stressor to Phil.

2. What are the consequences of the above stressors to Phil’s professional (work) and personal life?

Professional life:

The consequence of the stressors is divided into two dimensions: eustress and distress. In this case study, Phil died because of work overload. So the eustress is negligible.

The consequence of work overload to Phil’s professional life is job burnout. ①‘Job burnout is a particular stress consequence that refers to the process of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment’ Job burnout is seriously affect efficacy.

Family problem is also an influencing factor. Phil stayed up nights thinking about