Observations On the Relation of Psychosocial Factors To Psychiatric Illness Among Coal-Miners

Coal mining is one of the most hazardous of occup's. The miner's subterranean existence fills his lungs with bad air & his mind with frustrations & fears. Inadquate housing, limited community resources & soc isolation make up his supraterranean existence. The miner's soc environment is more frustrating than rewarding. His soc outlets are extremely limited. Living & work conditions such as these are factors contributing to physical (silicosis) & emotional (anxiety-based smothering) suffocation. These observations are based on experiences gained in the operation of a mental health clinic in the coalmining regions of WVa. Several effects of threat to the adaptive mechanism are discussed. Mechanization has disrupted the soc cohesion of the work-team, with an increase in psychol'al stress. While it may have increased production, it has intensified psychol'al stress & increased psychiatric casualities. Other stress factors discussed are disrupting soc influences introduced from without as the result of changes in transportation & COMM's && an unstable, fluid, employment situation. Such a trapped, hopeless life situation is seen as requiring the use of certain mental mechanisms on the part of the miner: passive acceptance of his role, repression, & denial of fear & hostility. This defensive psychol'al structure is posited as helping to explain the miner's apparent apathy & his proneness to develop psycho-physiological symptoms. The miner's wife also develops psycho-physiological reactions, but her symptoms are seen as psychodynamically diff. While there is no direct physical threat on her life, there is the ever-present threat of losing her main source of her security (financial & emotional), her husband. What is needed to deal with there problems is a corps of group workers who can function as soc catalysts. Such trained workers could activate reacreational programs, & plant seeds for group cohesiveness & group identification. S. Schwartz.