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WHEN WORK LOSES ITS MEANING: A CATEGORIAL ANALYSIS OF OCCUPATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH IN COLOMBIA AND MEXICO
Objective. To develop a categorical interpretation of workplace mental health in organizations in Colombia and Mexico, identifying tensions between organizational demands, psychosocial risk, labor subjectivity, meaning of work, and the humanization of work environments. Method. A qualitative, interpretive, and documentary study was conducted based on the review of scientific and institutional sources on mental health at work, psychosocial risk factors, working conditions, and regulatory frameworks in Colombia and Mexico. The analysis followed an exploratory reading process, initial coding, category grouping, and interpretative synthesis, enabling the construction of meaning units. Results.
Workplace mental health emerges as a situated experience shaped by tensions between regulation and lived experience, measurement and meaning, productivity and care, demand and recognition. Key categories identified include organizational demands, burnout, control, recognition, subjectivity, care, resistance, and humanization, highlighting the complexity of the phenomenon in contemporary work contexts. Conclusion. Workers’ mental health cannot be reduced to an individual responsibility or a purely technical-regulatory compliance issue. It requires preventive, educational, and humanized organizational practices that integrate the meaning of work and psychosocial well-being.
