Is neuropsychology the solution to workplace stress?

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A new book argues that research into neuropsychology could help employers tackle workplace stress by encouraging more integrated, coherent and cohesive organisations and relationships. Author Dr Paul Brown explains. In January 2011, a group from Massachusetts General Hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School reported that an eight-week, self-managed, mindfulness-based stress reduction training programme created measurable changes in the density of brain cells in the hippocampus. For the first time there was structural evidence that one method of stress reduction had clear neurophysiological correlates, and in a region "known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection". The danger is that such a finding gets applied mindlessly. Many a coach knows the impossibility of getting a highly stressed executive to even consider taking time to do something so apparently time wasting as learning one of the simpler meditation techniques. It is an understanding of the whole system that is needed before any technique makes sense. Understanding the whole system is something that is rather lacking in HR. Psychology and the social sciences generally have not served HR well as underlying bodies of knowledge. Now, and because of the new brain sciences, there is an interesting fundamental challenge looming for organisations, and there are a number of ways of stating it. One way would be to ask: could company leaders and HR get away from the pseudo-science of numbers, self-limiting demands for performance and the nonsense of much “evidence-based” deliberation and into real science?

History

Another way might be to reflect on the notion of two kings and the barber surgeons. In medieval times, those who had sharp blades were swordsmen or butchers or barbers. In battles or brawls, swordsmen inflicted nasty injuries on each other. Barbers had the tools to cut sharply and quickly when amputation was necessary. As the systematic study of anatomy improved through the fifteenth century, so did the skills of the barbers who were surgeons. Henry VIII established the United Guild of Barber Surgeons in 1540. But, bit by bit, those who were really skillful wanted to separate themselves off from their haircutting brethren. Rembrandt’s great painting