Posted By TBC It stressed me out thinking about how much work you had to put into gaining all those letters after your name.

Posted By Raymond Rapp Jean Not strictly relevant, but more so than the previous posting, I did a formal research proposal on occupational stress interventions for my MSc and it taught me to leave the subject well alone. I was also asked by a colleague (consultant) if I would be prepared to do stress RAs for a company. No thanks. ps it's not good form to use post nominals on a chat forum Regards Ray

Posted By Jean Chamberlain Thank you to those who have sent me emails direct. Sorry, if I've offended anyone. This is my first time, I'm just a beginner. Point 1 As a professional with an overdose of qualifications, I recognise that there are people out there who know more and can do things better than myself. It doesn't knock my esteem to seek help and guidance, that's what makes me competent recognising my limitations and that I can learn from others.It's also a reflection of what I thought this forum was meant to be about. Point 2 I am capable of carrying out stress risk assessments. Happy to provide guidance and work with anyone who needs help and assistance with this. Point 3 What I want is people's experiences of being on the receiving end of having a stress risk assessment undertaken. Thus the reason I gave my email address. I am happy to make contact via the telephone if anyone wants to discuss this in more detail. Now stop shooting me, till I learn the ropes Kind regards Jean

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Jean With respect, Nanny nurse belongs elsewhere. Your initial enquiry included this specific question:What impact did the assessment have on their continuing in their role? Comments - not least your own tetchy subsequent one - illustrate how much the culture of the organisation influence the impact of interventions including risk assessment of stress.

Posted By Pete48 Jean, There are many of us who support and understand the importance of work such as yours. I will mail you direct with my experiences of using assessment techniques to gain an understanding of the existence and impact of stress on organisations and individuals. The subject of your work looks very interesting and I will look forward to the publication with interest. I understand fully why you told us your post nominals when raising such a question on your first visit to this forum and for such a subject. You may not have realised that it is an open forum, anyone can join, not just H&S professionals.

Posted By Jim Walker Hear, hear, Metal Man. If those of you who responded had read Jean's original post properly, you would see what she was asking for and why. Instead you rushed in. Come on, apologise!

Posted By Kieran J Duignan As long ago as 1955, a leading American clinical psychologist, George Kelly, published 'The Psychology of Personal Constructs', specifically about creative ways of helping people to understand stress and manage it more effectlvely. A Welsh occupational psychologist, Ken Powell, used this method to investigate occupational stress, iniitially within IBM (for his M Sc thesis); he published an explanation in 'Stress in Your Life', Thorsons, 1988 which was translated into several languages. He continued his line of work and wrote 'Burnout' published by Thorsons in 1993. Sadly, he died a month after this was published. Ken's books are a modern introduction to using repertory grids as a method of enquiring about occupational stress. They have the great advantage that they carry out the exploration in the language of clients, rather than that 'imported' by a researcher or a computer. Ken was my counselling supervisor from 1984 to 1993; besides one-to-one supervision, he helped me with a fruitful use of repertory grids to explore stress in a large UK sales office of an international electronics company under strain in 1992, where problems of change could otherwise have become expensive for the company to handle. Unavoidably, investigating stress reflects the culture of the organisation where the investigation is conducted. Sometimes, managers spoil the enquiry by not-so-subtle manipulations; when they don't, the outcomes can resolve problems that have been seen as a swamp. Enquiring about stress also tends to release stressors. Sometimes, it can be well worth letting the flak just pass you by, and smile. If you want to test a useful computer program for using repertory grids, you can do so at www.gridsuite.de (a bilingual site in the University of Stuttgart) free for up to 45 days.

Posted By mark limon Welcome Jean,there are some very helpful people on here,have fun sorting the wheat from the chaff, Mark.