L'ADAPTATION AU TRAVAIL EN FONCTION DES NIVEAUX DE MATURATION DE LA PERSONNALITÉ

Everyday experience shows that adaptation to work is linked with certain personality traits more than with intellectual or even sensory "motor aptitudes. (Recall in particular the work of English investigators.) The attempt can be made to determine these personality traits by means of tests. But this method yields results which are difficult to interpret. Through observation of : 1° The conditions of adaptation to work in mental defectives, in a psychiatric service ; 2° The conditions of maladjustment in certain subjects who had formerly been adapted, in the occupational rehabilitation services of the Ministry of Social Security, the author has concluded that the subjects who are illadapted or who have ceased to be adapted are immature or sick people who have undergone a regression. Review of the general lines of growth and maturation of personality. Study of different « levels » at which defectives are adapted — in the sphere of : environment, human relations, type of work* materials. Necessity of seeking for each deficient a primitive level corresponding to his per" sonal characteristics, and of specialising him at that level. The work of selection and guidance must include investigating qualities of self" reliance, and the capacity for responsibility and independence with regard to work. The lower these capacities are, the more the subject must be specialised. The condi" tions of work should be so arranged that the greatest number of people can find in it the characteristics corresponding to the level of maturity of each one.