Occupational Psychology

Occupational Psychology Services

Occupational Psychology (also referred to as Organisational or Work Psychology) relates to the study of human behaviour in the workplace. Organisational psychologists recognise the importance of relationships between individuals, organisations, and society. They deal with issues and problems involving people at work by serving as advisors and clinicians in a variety of work situations.

Lynne Forrest & Associates work with individual workers who are experiencing distress. Employees in distress are likely to be experiencing common mental health problems (CMHP’s) such as low mood, depression, anxiety and panic. These problems affect 1 in 5 of us directly and 2 in 7 people indirectly as a result of a family member or loved one.

Workplace (dis)stress can have a very negative impact on workplaces and result in poor performance, conflict, workplace absence, burnout and presenteeism for the employer and the organisation as a whole.

Psychological distress can also result from long term illness and recovery from accidents. Employees may have suffered a traumatic incident, bereavement, a sudden illness or loss, or a shocking event that will have an impact on their normal functioning. We can assist by offering appropriate and evidence based support to help individuals as they come to terms with and recover from such events.

In all cases we can offer support with referrals from Occupational Health Departments, Human Resources or Manager referrals’, Health & Safety Departments or Employee Assistance/Staff Welfare.

TRAINING AND SUPPORT

At Lynne Forrest and Associates we also provide a range of support services, including training, supervision and Psychological First Aid to help foster resilience and maintain well-being for groups and individuals.

Workplace Mental Health Promotion and Stress Management

Stress is the most common cause of workplace illness and absenteeism. EU figures suggest that it costs in excess of 30 billion each year in days lost at work or poor performance at work. Stress is good for us to a certain point and helps motivate and challenge us to achieve high levels of satisfaction at work. On the other hand when the demands exceed our ability to cope we can experience distress. Stress is caused by stressors, some of which will be related to the workplace itself and some of which are personal issues. Work Related Stress (WRS) usually features a combination of both work characteristics and personal characteristics. We offer bespoke training to organisations to help develop resilience and self-care among employees.

Restorative Supervision

Many employees work in environments that are psychologically and emotionally challenging. Such workplaces include hospitals, hospice care, juvenile care and prisons. Restorative supervision can provide support for employees to cope under conditions that are often difficult and harrowing on a daily basis. It can provide a space for the individual to begin to cognitively process experiences and begin to make sense of and move on from these experiences.

Critical Incident Stress Management

A critical incident is a challenging event that has the potential to create significant human distress and can overwhelm one’s usual coping mechanisms. At work it is an event or situation that causes emotional and psychological trauma in the people exposed to it. It is usually a sudden, unexpected and powerful event outside the range of normal experiences and outside workers’ control. Examples include workplace accidents, robberies, explosions, fire, attempted or completed suicide, witnessing a person die, extreme violence and physical threats. Critical Incident Stress Management is a multi-component crisis intervention approach to managing the effects of critical incident stress and typically includes pre-incident training, acute care and post-incident response.

At Lynne Forrest & Associates we are on hand to respond to organisational needs at all three levels and to ensure that organisations can effectively meet their duty of care obligations from a moral, legal and business perspective.

Coping

How we cope with the challenges that life often throws at us is the key to mental robustness. Coping skills are methods a person uses to deal with stressful situations. Obtaining and maintaining good coping skills does take practice. However utilizing these skills becomes easier over time. Most importantly, good coping skills make for good mental health wellness. Here at Lynne Forrest and Associates we can help your employees and staff to learn good coping skills and strategies including Mindfulness at Work.