In this article our National Executive Colleague Jerry Dixon,Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the Psychological Society of Ireland, poses an interesting question for discussion.
Since the Celtic Tiger, Government policies and perspectives have been keen to cite that the responsibility of unemployment rests within the individual. Namely, if you were not working you must have been part of that choice. Although well known, the impact of negative mental health and depression were seen as an unfortunate side effect of unemployment, but not really perceived as a significant mental health issue in the eyes of the government agencies (with the exception of diverting the person onto a disability payment). Even further from awareness was the extent that mental health issues may actually be the cause of long-term unemployment, especially in the light of the near universal shift towards the competency-based interview or recruitment profiling systems. In essence, selection methods that somehow assume that a jobseeker has instant and completely unrestricted access to their own memories of work, and can elaborate with a wide and descriptive lexicon all the skills and competencies they possess in the workplace (with supporting examples).
There has been a slowly growing mass of evidence in the research literature to connect unemployment with degraded and failing memory systems in some people. Initially this was described as skill amnesia, caused by a lack of positive feedback in the work place, routinized or mundane work, or, job types where the skills just became highly automatic. However, there is also growing evidence to associate unemployment with a type of depression called Alexithymia (which literally means without words), a condition that reportedly affects about 10% of females and 7% of males across Europe. Essentially, it results in a memory and language deficit, and a reduction in emotional expression and social communication skills. As a result, from the research conducted people with Alexithymia report lower levels of social support, are poor at reading body language and creating positive first impressions, can make the person appear distant and uninterested, can be mistaken as laziness, have difficulty describing themselves and assigning skills and attributes, and have difficulty accessing autobiographical (self-related) memories. Although the connection with prolonged unemployment is immediately recognisable, only a few researchers have begun to associate this condition with increased risk of unemployment. Some even posit Alexithymia as one potential cause of prolonged unemployment.
With the notable exception of Ireland, most reemployment services in Europe engage the services of Psychologists to help address these cognitive deficits through a range of mnemonic techniques. However, there are serious questions as to how such conditions will be facilitated and even recognised in the new national and regional employment services who do not possess the diagnostic tools, or professionally trained staff to identify what could be a significant number of people. Bearing in mind the percentages cited above were national averages across a population, not just people who are unemployed (where the figure is likely to be a lot higher). It is disturbing to think how the DSP’s PEX system, or the algorithmic people processing systems of the new regional and national employment services might evaluate such people. Not to mention the confounding impact on their mental health if their condition is construed to be ‘unengaging’. So, as a mental health issue (where the person may not even realise they have a mental health issue), is it a fair question to ask should such people by assisted by the HSE?