Psychodynamics of work: Bibliometric mapping in 53 years of publications indexed in Scopus and agenda for future studies

Psicodinâmica do trabalho: Mapeamento bibliométrico em 53 anos de publicações indexadas na Scopus e agenda de estudos futuros

Psicodinámica del trabajo: Mapeo bibliométrico en 53 años de publicaciones indexadas en Scopus y agenda de estudios futuros

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

Work is a field where people form their identities, act in different types of organizations and contexts, which allow them to experience, through interpersonal relationships, different collective living. Work has been a decisive and central dimension throughout human history. Since the dawn of mankind, the production of materials and symbolic goods has been the result of human endeavor. Alternating between creation and submission, cathartic activity and bondage, the world of labor has gone through realities such as compulsory labor, slavery, free labor and servitude, poiésis and tripalium, ergon and ponos, act and punishment, thus spreading the dialectics of labor (Antunes, 2015).

There are several areas of knowledge that address work in their scientific studies, like economics, sociology, engineering, ergonomics, and psychology, among others. Different understandings about labor are circumscribed cognitively and according to their respective areas. Although strong, these studies are not consensual, either conceptually, epistemologically, or political-ideologically, and they have as historical background a debate on work centrality, or not, in contemporary society (Dejours, 2016).

This study focused on understanding work within the concept of Psychodynamics of Work (PDW), which is an interdisciplinary theoretical lens; therefore, it dialogues with various areas of scientific knowledge. For Sznelwar (2020), building Psychodynamics of Work occurs through the debate with these different areas, such as psychoanalysis (workers' mental health), economics (labor economics, work precarization, performance, the economic impact that accidents, work leaves, and workers’ diseases cause on them, the companies, and the State), sociology (social organization of labor), ergonomics (working conditions, labor instruments, and organization of the working environment), and organizational sciences (ways of assessing individual and collective performance, people management), production sciences (quality and productivity), law (workers' rights in situations of accidents, work leaves), among others.

Regarding political-economic issues, Dejours (2019) highlights the importance of understanding the effects of neoliberalism and neoconservatism in structuring new ways of organizing work, and the relevance of work centrality and its different specificities with PDW. Thus, centrality relates to gender, subjectivity, labor economics, labor politics, and labor epistemology. In addition, under the clinical view of PDW, work, in the human perspective, is what fosters the fact of working. This includes the gestures, the know-how, how the body engages in it, the mobilization of intelligence, the individual's ability to reflect, interpret, and react to work-related situations (Dejours, 2004). PDW epistemology arises from the experience of working (Trudel, 2000).

The Dejourian theoretical current is composed of macro-dimensions, and proposes the study of the context dimensions represented by work organization, and also by socio-professional relations and working conditions, which are related to the scenarios where content dimensions are clarified, such as defensive or coping strategies, subjective mobilization and the psychic burden, capable of outlining workers' experiences of pleasure or suffering that can affect their state of health or illness (Dejours, Abdoucheli & Jayet, 1994; Mendes, 2007).

Christophe Dejours's work promotes a unique reflection on the interference that work can have on individuals’ mental health. This topic is currently relevant, due to the numerous positive and negative consequences arising from work, which can affect workers and the way labor is organized, divided, and distributed (Areosa, 2019).

With the purpose of identifying gaps and the state of the art of publications on PDW, we conducted a survey in major databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Periódicos Capes [Capes Journals], and EBSCO), on bibliometric publications on "Psychodynamics of Work". We found four bibliometric studies: Reis, Castro e Silva, and Zille (2020), Sousa et al. (2020), Conde, Cardoso, and Klipan (2019), and Machado, Macêdo, and Machado (2017). Reis et al. (2020) checked the publications in Google Scholar, SciELO and Spell databases, between 2015 and 2019, searching papers published in journals with Qualis Capes classification from A1 to B5, and found 101 articles. Sousa et al. (2020) analyzed publications on PDW at the Web of Science database, between 1970 and 2018, and found 49 papers.

Conde et al. (2019) accessed scientific journals through the SciELO database, between 2005 and 2015. They found 20 articles published in Brazil. Machado et al. (2017) focused on international publications on the Psychodynamics of Work proposed by Dejours, published between 2000 and 2014, in English and French, available at Capes Journals Portal, where they found 50 articles. Most of them (78%) were published in international journals not scored by Qualis Capes.

Given this context, to overcome the limitations of bibliometric studies on PDW and contribute for updating and deepening these analyses, we sought to answer the following question: What is the bibliometric profile of the publications on Psychodynamics of Work, from its origins up to the present, and what are their future prospects? The study objective was to map that profile and propose an agenda for future studies.

We made a bibliometric description of 53-year publications (1970 to 2022), indexed in Scopus, totaling 195 papers. We chose Scopus database over the others for its coverage and international recognition, as well as for presenting the highest number of results for the survey conducted with the search term "Psychodynamics of Work".

Bibliometric studies contribute to academic praxis by identifying trends in scientific fields, enabling to understand their evolution, identify their clusters, and the interaction between them. Through bibliometric mapping, it is also possible to track temporal evolution and recognize the main authors involved (Noyons, Moed & Van Raan, 1999). For Silva et al. (2021), bibliometric studies refer to review studies and, therefore, identify knowledge production by discussing the trends and challenges of a certain field of study, in addition to signaling new demands of a given academic area and methodological research designs. Mapping the profile of publications on PDW indexed in Scopus, throughout the lifetime of this database, enabled theoretical, methodological, empirical, and managerial contributions.

From the mappings, we found research gaps regarding the topics (theoretical contribution), the subjects (empirical contribution), the approaches and types of research (methodological contribution), by identifying the most repeated contents and those that were less analyzed. The identification of gaps defined an agenda for future studies, enabling new researchers to advance PDW study based on topics that contribute to reducing these theoretical and empirical gaps. The managerial contributions of the article address especially the area of People Management in contemporary organizations, since occupational stress, illness, pleasure and suffering at work, work relationships, and the working context can affect health, welfare, work execution, and the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations.

Hence, in the academic environment, in a practical way, this bibliometric study contributes to guide PDW researchers and their groups in identifying research gaps. It can also help preparing scientific articles or graduate students’ theses and dissertations, besides guiding professors for teaching PDW. In macro terms, it is socially relevant, by shedding light on a theory’s scientific production that can greatly help reduce a phenomenon of high social cost: work leaves caused by increasing emotional and mental illness.

The relevance of this study implies extending, deepening, and updating the bibliometric analysis of publications on PDW. It also suggests an agenda of future studies to guide other researchers in defining studies that can fill theoretical-empirical gaps on PDW theory, thus promoting relevant contributions to developing this field of study.

In the 1950s, Psychodynamics of Work emerged from a movement named "Psychopathology of Work", led by French psychiatrists. At that time, there were social changes stemming from the difficulties of World War II, which drove to changes in the world of labor, such as the modernization of the rising industry and demands for readapting the production system (Pena & Remoaldo, 2019).

PDW has suffered different theoretical influences during its evolution. Its own name reveals some of these influences. Christophe Dejours defined the term "Psychodynamics of Work" in 1980, based on Psychopathology of Work, a branch of Psychiatry. Meanwhile, Le Guillant and Sivadon, considered the precursors of Psychopathology of Work, were essential to the understanding of the relationship between work and illness (Soldera, 2016).

Since its inception, Psychodynamics of Work is related to psychoanalysis, psychology, and ergonomics, as well as to sociology and occupational health, among other areas (Dejours, 2004). Hence, PDW consists of a set of relevant, cohesive, and updated theoretical conceptions and methodological procedures, applied in studies and research within the scope of labor situations regarding processes of suffering, as well as work sickness (Conde et al., 2019).

Psychodynamics of Work is guided by specific concepts on what is 'work', subjectivity, sublimation, deontic activity, the rules of craft, individuality and collectivity, defense strategies against violence, often imposed by organizations, as well as employee’s zeal in doing his/her work. For Dejours (2004), working is filling the gap between the prescribed and the real work, while zeal refers to the intelligence needed for developing solutions to deal with the gap between the task (prescribed work) and the activity (real work), and mobilizing this intelligence in difficult working situations (Dejours, 2013). He explained the deontic activity by pointing out that working is not only producing, but also living together and building rules collectively. Sublimation was first explained by Freud, and is a psychic process that guides a desire or impulse toward a purpose, destination, or object, based on social valuation (Dejours, 2012a). The study object of Psychopathology of Work was expanded by Psychodynamics of Work (Gemelli & Oltramari, 2020). The studies on psychopathology remained notable, and its understanding was increased with the use of concepts that consider suffering, pleasure, mental illness, and normality, the latter being defined as the psychic balance between psychic defenses and the destabilizing or pathogenic constraint of work (Soldera, 2016).

Psychopathology of Work addresses mainly mental diseases caused by work, while Psychodynamics of Work seeks to assimilate how workers face the suffering caused by the institutional violence of work organization and, especially, the strategies used for their protection and defense from this suffering (Areosa, 2019). Psychodynamics of Work investigates not only the illness, suffering, and pleasure at work, but also analyzes the result achieved with the work and the personal development of the worker (Araújo & Zambroni-de-Souza, 2015).

Therefore, it is necessary to understand the labor factors that cause mental illness in workers. However, there are other discussions that go beyond understanding the factors that cause sickness, such as the ways workers defend themselves from stressing agents in the work environment, the different strategies they use to face daily difficulties at work, and the results achieved by each person.

Defense strategies are partly composed by reducing the perception of suffering, and are a significant barrier to verbalization and communication that take place in the subjective relationship with work. Hence, defenses help eliminate the activity language, unique and capable of relaunching the debate on real work and its organization, to the disadvantage of a defensive-denouncing language raised by defenses (Duarte & Dejours, 2020).

According to Dashtipour and Vidaillet (2017), Dejours draws on his clinical experience of decades with individuals suffering from work-related problems, and on his role as a researcher and organization consultant, to generate and further develop a theory that explains the relationship between work, the material, the social, and the political, focusing on the ways that work affects the subjectivity and the human life.

Subjectivity is inherent to work. As Dejours (2012) highlights, work seizes subjectivity. This occurs because the worker develops familiarity and closeness with what is material, that is, his/her work tools, and from then on, develops new skills and finds in himself/herself new sensitivity records. The experience of working puts him/her in contact with his/her own limitations and imperfections, and also awakens affective sensations. The relationship between the employee and his/her work is subjective, since it depends on the worker's perception of the suffering arising from the work he/she does. However, PDW also considers the worker's coping strategies and professional development.

Dejours has dialogued with different researchers from various disciplines, based on the meeting between perspectives of psychoanalysis and ergonomics, as exemplified by the defense mechanisms, as well as on the relationship between the prescribed and the real work. Thus, he has sought to define the object, and the field of research and action (Uchida, Sznelwar & Lancman, 2011). Faced with the impossibility of doing the prescribed work, of fully following the formal rule for executing it, due to unforeseen occurrences and restrictions perceived at the time of execution, the worker is faced with a dilemma that generates suffering and can also cause sickness: to disobey the rule, the formal organization of the work, because he/she has no other option, but to solve the problem from his/her subjectivity and experience, or insist in complying with the rule, for fear of being punished by the formal work organization. The more inflexible the organization, the more difficult it will be for the worker to balance the prescribed and the real work, and the more the organization will cause him/her suffering and illness.

The Dejourian approach is notably Freudian; it uses the Freudian word ‘affection’, instead of ‘emotion’, because it shows the link between the psyche and the body, and considers the sexual drive and its change through the work process. Dejours states that Freudian metapsychology does not appreciate work very much, so its ambition is to provide psychoanalysis with an understanding of the specific role of work on subjective building, as well as in connecting it to the sexual impulse. Thus, Psychodynamics of Work focuses on what work offers psychically to the subject, and how it affects him/her (Dashtipour & Vidaillet, 2017).

In explaining the benefits of Psychodynamics of Work for understanding the relationships between work and subjectivity, Dejours (2006) argues that the changes in the forms of labor organization, administration, and management are based on neoliberalism and supported by principles that sacrifice subjectivity in favor of profitability and competitiveness. Neoliberalism advocates the Minimum State, where the State should play a secondary role in regulating the economy. Thus, it encourages the privatization of state companies, international competitiveness, and fights social and labor policies. In this context, the worker is seen as a resource, and the precarization of work strengthens the issues addressed in PDW, where the worker will have to develop more defensive strategies in the face of more aggressive organizational situations, with the increase of his/her obligations and the reduction of rights.

Therefore, PDW is a clinical approach, based mainly on the link that is established between subjectivity, work, and action. In addition, its relevance stands out through the contemporary analysis of work and subjectivity, and the considerable advances that its assumptions have brought to the discussion involving the relationship between work and forms of subjectivation (Gemelli & Oltramari, 2020).

PDW consists of a psychodynamic analysis of intersubjective processes, which are driven by the work situation (Sznelwar, Uchida & Lancman, 2011). According to Dejours, Abdoucheli, and Jayet (2007, p. 18), Psychodynamics of Work "designates the study of psycho-affective movements generated by the enhancement of intersubjective and intra-subjective conflicts" that exist at work. The worker experiences intrinsic sorrows that emerge in his/her relationship with work. Longings, ambitions, competencies, and limitations express themselves in the face of the challenges for doing the work. However, these expand in the individual's relationship with coworkers, who are also experiencing intrinsic sorrows in executing their work, and the challenges in the work environment become more complex with the congruence of the intersubjective problems of the workers' collectivity.

PDW is composed of four macro-dimensions: (i) work context, which studies the organization of work, working conditions, and work relations; (ii) work dynamics, through the mobilization of work and recognition at work; (iii) experiences at work, through the study of pleasure and suffering at work; and (iv) the states of work, where the worker’s health and illness are analyzed (Dejours et al., 2007; Mendes, 2007).

The work context is the scenario where psychic acceptances and the formation of intersubjective relationships are developed, socio-professional relationships are recognized, enabled by work conditions and interposed by work organization. This context contributes to invigorating the subject's singularity, since the work context influences pleasure, as well as suffering, which characterize subjectivity at work. These experiences represent the meaning given to work, following the relationship between the subjective conditions inherent to workers and the objective conditions that show the work reality (Augusto, Freitas, & Mendes, 2014).

The organization of work, working conditions, and work relations make up the context of labor. While the organization of work refers to both the division of tasks and the assignment of workers to execute tasks, working conditions regard the characteristics present in the work environment, such as the conditions of tools, machines, and equipment, and the exposure or not to stressing agents. Work relations refer to the social dimension of work and relationships.

Work dynamics are composed of subjective mobilization and recognition. Recognition is a form of work assessment, but it is neither quantitative nor objective. It is not tailor-made; it is a severe and rigorous method of assessment that does not include quantitative measurements, but instead judgmental, qualitative tests. And as an evaluation, recognition plays a key role in changing suffering at work into pleasure and enlargement of identity, as well as of mental health (Dejours, 2011).

Evaluation methods related to individual performance also harm cooperation, since they put individual goals before collective goals (Giannini, Sznelwar, & Uchida, 2019). Recognition plays a key role for preventing suffering, since it provides meaning to each worker’s commitment (Rolo, 2018).

Experiences at work involve pleasure and suffering. PDW established by Dejours relates suffering and pleasure at work, provides evidence for the worker’s subjective involvement, his/her mobilization, strategies, perspectives of creation, as well as sickness in doing his/her activity (Cavanellas & Brito, 2019).

Suffering at work begins when the employee cannot perform the task satisfactorily, despite his/her zeal. In contrast, pleasure begins when he/she devises appropriate solutions, because of zeal. Hence, pleasure and suffering at work are not complementary, but strictly inseparable from work. And zeal at work is associated with the affective engagement of subjectivity conflicting with the real (Dejours, 2012).

Work states refer to health and illness due to work. The world of labor is guided by the logic of financial capital, which demands continuous growth, imposing incoherent goals, based on the argument that human beings are endowed with extreme overcoming capacity; therefore, psychic sickness at work is a result of all this. In trying to correspond to the assumptions that success is only achieved by defining increasingly exaggerated and extreme goals, these persons are perceived not for their success, but for being willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of the suffering. However, there are people acting in environments more conducive to health promotion, which enables reflection and change. It is in this direction that we can discuss pleasure at work, as well as the emancipation of those who work (Sznelwar et al., 2011).

Next, we present the research methodology.

This was a quantitative study, carried out through bibliometric methods. We did two bibliographic surveys: the first sought to find bibliometric articles already published on Psychodynamics of Work (PDW), to contribute to establishing criteria for defining methodological procedures that could complement previous studies; and the second survey aimed to select the database to be used in the study, and define the bibliometric profile to investigate.

Survey 1

The first survey of bibliometric studies on Psychodynamics of Work was conducted in September 2022 in the Web of Science, Scopus, Capes Journals, and EBSCOhost databases.

As search criteria in the first round, we looked for the terms "Psychodynamics of Work" and "bibliometric" in the titles, at the search bases Google Scholar, SciELO, Spell, Web of Science, and Capes Journals, without time delimitation. We found the following bibliometric studies: Reis et al. (2020), Sousa et al. (2020), Conde et al. (2019), and Machado et al. (2017). Table 1 shows the authors of these four bibliometric studies, the search strategies defined by them, the databases used to find the papers, the total number of articles analyzed, and the time period considered in each study.

Table 1

Bibliometric studies on Psychodinamics of Work

Source: Developed by the authors.

Most of the bibliometric studies focused only on one of the databases: Google Scholar, SciELO, Spell, Web of Science and Capes Journals; SciELO and Spell have less international coverage than the others. The Scopus database was not used in these searches.

Regarding the time distribution of the 195 publications analyzed, the first article was published in 1970. Only in the 1990s, three more were published. In the 2000s, there were 31 papers. In the 2010s, 132. And from 2020 to 2022, 46 articles were published.

The first publication on Psychodynamics of Work addressed the daily work in a psychiatric hospital for children, published by Mongeau, Champagne, and Labelle St-Pierre (1970). The second was only published 25 years later, by Maranda (1995), and the third, in the following year, by Vezina (1996).

Figure 1 shows the evolution of publications on Psychodynamics of Work.

Figure 1
Evolution of publications on Psychodynamics of Work in Scopus database
Source: Scopus (2023).

As of 2010, publications on PDW in Scopus began to increase, still with some fluctuations. The years 2011 and 2019 showed the highest number of papers, with 22 and 25 scientific articles, respectively. In 2020, 12 articles were published, and in 2021, 16.

Considering the period from 1970 to 2022, the concentration areas with the largest number of publications on PDW were: Psychology (37.5%), Social Sciences (34%), Medicine (12.2%), Nursing (7.6%), and Business, Management, and Accounting (2.6%). Papers were concentrated in the following journals: ‘Travailler’ [Working], ‘Psicologia e Sociedade’ [Psychology and Society], ‘Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem’ [Brazilian Journal of Nursing], ‘Santé Mentale au Quebec’ [Mental Health at Quebec], and ‘Ciência e Saúde Coletiva’ [Science and Collective Health].

Regarding affiliation, the authors of the 195 articles are mainly affiliated to University of São Paulo, Conservatoire National des Artes et Métiers, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Université de Paris, University of Brasilia, Université Laval, University of Montreal, and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, among other educational institutions. Hence, the publications indexed in Scopus showed the dominance of Brazilian researchers, followed by French and Canadian.

When analyzing the co-occurrence of keywords in the publications on Psychodynamics of Work, we found 787 keywords, and 46 had the minimum of 5 occurrences. Keywords are distributed in five clusters, with 579 links and total link strength equal to 1,694, shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2
Thematic network of keyword co-occurrence
Source: VOSviewer software output (2023).

The keywords used in an article help describe its content and identify the structure of a research area (Cahlík & Jirina, 2006). This network shows other keywords used in studies on PDW, and how they relate to each other

The red cluster is formed by the following keywords: body, cooperation, ergonomics, human experiment, management, mental health, psychoanalysis, psychodynamic of work, psychodynamics, psychodynamics of work, recognition, subjectivity, suffering, suicide, work, and work organization. In the green cluster we found the keywords adult, attitude of health personnel, Brazil, female, health personnel attitude, job satisfaction, male, middle aged, nursing, nursing staff, pleasure, psychology, and qualitative research. The blue cluster contains the keywords article, defense mechanism, human, human relation, humans, interpersonal relations, mental stress, occupational disease, occupational diseases, organization, psychological aspect, stress, psychological, and workplace. The yellow cluster contains the keywords occupational health, theoretical study, and worker. Finally, the purple cluster has only one keyword: France.

The keywords related to “Psychodynamics of Work” are listed, in decreasing order, according to the total force of the link: human (313 total link strength and 41 occurrences), humans (259 total link strength and 31 occurrences), work (149 total link strength and 46 occurrences), psychology (132 total link strength and 16 occurrences), psychodynamics (120 total link strength and 19 occurrences), female (114 total link strength and 12 occurrences), male (109 total link strength and 11 occurrences), pleasure (104 total link strength and 13 occurrences), Brazil (94 total link strength and 10 occurrences), psychodynamics of work (87 total link strength and 64 occurrences), qualitative research (86 total link strength and 10 occurrences), stress psychological (86 total link strength and 11 occurrences), job satisfaction (84 total link strength and 8 occurrences), mental stress (83 total link strength and 10 occurrences), mental health (82 total link strength and 17 occurrences), middle aged (77 total link strength and 7 occurrences), occupational health (76 total link strength and 13 occurrences), occupational diseases (75 total link strength and 7 occurrences), psychological aspect (70 total link strength and 7 occurrences), occupational disease (67 total link strength and 6 occurrences), workplace (67 total link strength and 8 occurrences), nursing staff (65 total link strength and 6 occurrences), organization (65 total link strength and 6 occurrences); these were the 25 keywords with higher total link strength.

Regarding the co-citation network by author, we found 3,326 authors, of which 27 met the criteria of at least 17 citations. The clusters are shown in Figure 3

Figure 3
Co-citation network by author
Source: VOSviewer software output (2023)

Authors are distributed in six clusters, with 256 links and total link strength of 6,293. Co-citation by author connects those who have been cited together in reference lists (Zupic & Cater, 2015). The red cluster is composed by authors C. Dejours, S. Freud, I. Gernet, H. Hirata, J. Laplanche, P. Molinier, and J. Porcher. The green cluster is formed by Y. Clot, F. Daniellou, L. L. Ferreira, A. Laville, and Y. Schwartz. The dark-blue cluster comprises E. Abdoucheli, M. C. Ferreira, C. Jayet, A. M. Mendes, and A. R. C. Merlo. The yellow cluster contains F. Hubault, S. Lancman, L. I. Sznelwar, S. Uchida, and A. Wisner. The purple cluster is formed by authors H. Arendt, J-P. Deranty, and A. Honneth. Finally, the light-blue cluster is formed by D. Dessors and M. Yezina.

Among the 195 papers analyzed, the fourteen studies most cited in Scopus database were published between 2004 and 2021, and are presented in Table 2.

The most cited paper was Arnaud’s (2012). In that study, he mentions the growth of a fruitful stream of research on "PDW, leadership, and organizations" in the last 60 years. And also, that psychoanalytic theory can contribute to the evolution of organizational studies from three assumptions: (i) helping researchers to better understand how organizations operate, by considering the effects of the unconscious; (ii) guiding them in different fields of intervention, transferring aspects of the analytical treatment and integrating the transfer; (iii) leading researchers to review both managerial ends from a new standpoint, from psychoanalytical ethics and subject recognition.

The second most cited article was by Dejours (2006), who sought to answer the following questions: What is work? What is subjectivity? What is subjectivity between work and action? And its purpose was to relate work with "subjectivity" and with a person’s individual aspects, such as suffering, pleasure, and personal development. To this end, the author drew on a body of theory and clinical practice that was developing in France around the 1980s, called ‘Psychodynamics of Work’.

Table 2
Ranking of articles on Psychodynamics of Work most cited in Scopus

Source: Scopus (2023).Note: Cit* - Total citations

Renault (2007) studied work recognition from the perspective of Axel Honneth's theoretical model, comparing it to PDW. Although work has been central in Honneth's research, it has been addressed from many different standpoints in its intellectual evolution. Therefore, Renault (2007) proposed to remake the study in order to define the terms of comparison, and noticed that Honneth's Model had been used in different ways by labor sociologists, and confronting it with PDW should be further explored and developed by researchers.

Deranty (2009) presented the main results of a contemporary research on Psychodynamics of Work in France, at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, in Paris. For the author, Dejours is the central reference in this area, and his psychoanalytic approach addresses the impact of contemporary work practices, with implications that go beyond the narrow psychopathological interest.

Lancman et al. (2009) studied workers in the "Family Health Program", and described forms of external and indirect violence that affect their mental health, as well as the coping strategies developed to make their work possible and protect them psychologically. The authors concluded that psychological consequences caused by violence at work were observed in situations of high level of suffering, but did not always led to mental disorders. In terms of strategies for minimizing suffering, workers sought to protect themselves psychologically, in order to continue working, building networks of protection and solidarity to reduce vulnerability, and learning to identify and avoid risky situations.

Dashtipour and Vidaillet (2017) analyzed the relationships between affect and work, based on Dejours's views on affective suffering, real work, the meaning of the body, and ordinary sublimation. They also contributed to advance research on organizational studies, by showing the centrality of work in persons’ affective lives. The authors reinterpreted the Menzies Hospital case study to assess how Dejours's theory extends the existing psychoanalytic approaches, and especially to check the significant role of the group in supporting workers to do well. They concluded that, by recognizing the centrality of work in a person’s affective life, resistance strategies and the struggle of work groups for emancipation should focus on work recovery.

Table 3 shows the main attributes of the first papers on PDW indexed in Scopus, between 1970 and 2001.

Table 3
Bibliometric profile of publications on PDW in Scopus database (first articles between 1970-2001)

Source: Developed by the authors

The first publications, from 1970 to 2001, were qualitative research, with a focus on PDW studies with the following topics: difficulties at work, mental health in the work environment, occupational stress, work organization and conditions, work relations, work context, suffering at work, and work precarization. Of the five articles, three were empirical-theoretical and two were theoretical essays. Among the persons analyzed were the employees of the first psychiatric hospital for children in Quebec, workers who received support from a health and safety committee, and employees and managers of a television network.

Since the first articles on Psychodynamics of Work indexed in the Scopus database, there was conciliation of PDW with Health topics, like stress and coping strategies, given the increase of mental health problems. These findings are present in Maranda’s study (1995), through a criticism of the individual approaches that supported the theories on stress, and a collective approach of PDW as an alternative theory in the area of mental health at work.

Vézina (1996) classified as "epidemic" the increase in mental health problems occurring in Western countries, specifically related to organizations’ evolution, as well as to working conditions, and sought to implement strategies to fight them. In his paper, we see the congruence of Le Guillant and Sivadon's psychopathology of work with Dejours's psychodynamics of work. Although it shows mental illness from working conditions in the mid-1990s, this reality is still present and challenging, when resuming activities after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The epidemic of mental health problems reported by Vézina lasts today, mainly due to the after-effects of Covid-19 in the work environment.

In the second period analyzed in our study, between 2002 and 2019, publications evolved, mainly regarding the people involved. In addition to health professionals and issues related to mental health and stress (Lancman et al., 2009; Ribeiro & Martins, 2011; Wlosko & Ros, 2015; Glanzner et al., 2017; Pelletier, Buchan & Hall-Jackson, 2019; Rocha et al., 2019), studies addressed necrotomists (Silva et al., 2016), professionals in the electrical sector (Salvagni & Veronese, 2017), motorcycle couriers (Moraes, Rohr & Athayde, 2015), bank managers (Prata & Honório, 2014), prison guards (Tschiedel & Monteiro, 2013), workers with disabilities (Leão & Silva, 2012), teachers (Ribeiro, 2012; Brito et al., 2014; Hoffmann et al., 2017, 2019), civilian police officers (Anchieta et al., 2011), metalworkers (Rancan & Giongo, 2016), construction workers (Antloga & Mendes, 2009), and tele-sales agents (Rezende, Brito & Atahyde, 2009; Sznelwar & Abrahão, 2012).

Because the origin of Psychodynamics of Work is linked to psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology, ergonomics, and occupational medicine (Dejours, 2004), health professionals have been the main subjects examined in studies on PDW over the years. Given the specifics of their work, with shifts, direct contact with situations of illness, suffering and death of patients, the consequences have been noticed through the high rates of sickness and burnout of these professionals. However, due to the contribution of other areas, such as work sociology, work economics, work politics, and work epistemology (Dejours, 2019), research on PDW has expanded, from the 2000s, to several other professional areas, which also suffer from work overload and other conditions that lead to suffering and illness. PDW applies broadly to labor situations and their processes of suffering and sickness at work (Conde et al., 2019).

The third period analyzed was between 2020 and 2022, at the beginning and dissemination of the Covid-19 pandemic. In these years, a qualitative approach prevailed in the publications. Of the 46 articles published in that period, only two had a quali-quantitative approach. There was a prevalence of theoretical-empirical studies, with 31 papers, and theoretical essays, with 13 articles. There was one Systematic Literature Review and one clinical case study.

Among the subjects studied in this third period, there was a higher concentration on the work of Nursing professionals (oncology, obstetric, and nuclear medicine nurses), and Health professionals in general. However, papers also analyzed forensic physicians, Argentinian workers, workers without a specific area, patients with Covid-19, graduate students in Nursing, socio-educational agents and teenagers deprived of freedom, clinical listening professionals in public space, accounting trainees, auditors, public agents, and women in management positions at universities.

There was a dominance of topics on pleasure and suffering at work (Ros, 2020; Moreira, Tibães & Brito, 2020; Melo et al., 2021; Duarte et al., 2021; Karam, 2021; Trebien et al., 2021; De Vries, Blomme & De Loo, 2021; Gold, 2022); occupational stress (Siqueira et al., 2021; Rodrigues et al., 2021; Vieira et al., 2021); work precarization, gender, and subjectivity (Hirata, 2020; Sznelwar, 2020; Wlosko, 2020; Karam, 2021); work clinic (Uchida, 2021; Brasil, 2021); psychic suffering, work and mental health (Duarte & Dejours, 2020; Jeannin, 2021; Lancman, 2021); Covid-19 and work, ergonomics and sustainable work (Brunoro et al., 2020; Sigahi et al., 2021; Lancman, 2021); work organization (Dashtipour & Vidaillet, 2020); thanatomorphose (Boursier, 2020); work centrality (Demaegdt, 2020); PDW and care (Rolo & Pedrosa, 2021; Molinier, 2021; Gernet, 2021); conflict relations in organizations (Brasil et al., 2020); working conditions (Vieira et al., 2021); burnout (Gernet, 2021); the body place in living work (Dejours, 2022); spirituality and care (Hibon, 2022); relationships between visibility and recognition of caregivers' work from Covid-19 pandemic (Molinier, 2022), among others.

When comparing the first articles published and indexed in Scopus (from 1970 to 2001) with those published during the Covid-19 pandemic period, more specifically from 2020 to 2022, we found that the first articles focused on mental health problems and the work of health professionals, while in the more recent period, there was a change in both topics and subjects analyzed, given the complexity of organizations and the conflicts they were experiencing at the workplace, such as the pandemic itself and economic, political, and health crises in all countries, which have affected the work context.

Among the more recent studies, Sigahi, Kawasaki, and Marioka (2021) conducted a systematic review on the impact of Covid-19 at work, from the perspective of ergonomics and work psychodynamics. Gernet (2021) made a study on the clinical and psychopathological approach to burnout, with reflections supported by PDW.

Jeannin (2021) studied the experiences and psychological impact of the Covid crisis on patients and caregivers in a geriatric hospital. Siqueira et al. (2021) also analyzed the pandemic context by studying the palliative care of cancer patients affected by Covid-19, considering psychological stress from the perspective of PDW. Rolo and Pedrosa (2021) analyzed psychiatry together with psychosomatics and work.

Uchida (2021) sought to answer the following question: Psychodynamics, for which work, for whom? To do that, he considered the work changes and the new challenges of PDW. Brasil (2021) analyzed the work of psychologists doing social attention on the streets, based on contributions from PDW.

Karam (2021) considered the precarization of subjectivities as a tool for work precarization. Molinier (2021) analyzed care assistance and the psychodynamics of work. Lancman (2021) studied the change of health and work policies in Brazil in light of PDW. Trebien et al. (2021) studied the context of women in higher education management, analyzing diseases and strategies for coping with work demands.

Lancman et al. (2021) studied workers in the hospital environment, in times of pandemic, analyzing the singularities, crossings, and potentialities. De Vries, Blomme, and Loo (2021) examined the suffering and adaptation to work of trainees in the accounting area. Melo et al. (2021) analyzed the psychological exhaustion of radiology nurses in nuclear medicine services. Duarte et al. (2021) examined the pleasure and suffering at work of nurses in an onco-pediatric hospital unit, while Vieira et al. (2021) searched the strategies of nurse midwives, regarding working conditions in a maternity hospital.

Hirata (2020) discussed the relationship between PDW, gender, and subjectivity. From the perspective of psychodynamics of work and gender sociology, the author conducted an analysis focused on subjectivity and gender relations at work, highlighting the precarization of caregivers' work through an international comparison. Duarte and Dejours (2020) studied a clinical case to explore the relationship between mental health and professional reintegration, from the perspective of the theoretical and practical understanding of PDW.

Sznelwar (2020) reflected on the future changes of PDW, which are unavoidably connected to the future of work. And Wlosko (2020) addressed some challenges posed by contemporary world scenarios to PDW, particularly those related to the precarization of employment and work and, broadly, to the precarization of life as a normal model of existence.

From the publications between 2020 and 2022 on Psychodynamics of Work, the studies focused on professionals in hospitals, in addition to discussions related to their challenges in facing Covid-19. The papers also showed difficulties and work changes, pleasure and suffering at work, and care assistance.

From mapping publications on PDW indexed in Scopus, from 1970 to 2022, we noticed that the authors showed, over the years, the challenges of the context where they worked, at different times. Since the 1970s, they have presented the factors that cause suffering and illness in workers. The challenges persist over the years and workers still need to develop defensive strategies to cope with the stress and violence caused by contemporary labor, learn to deal with their subjectivity in the act of working, with their individuality and with the collectivity in the exercise of work, learn to sublimate, as well as apply zeal to their work, as explained by Dejours (2013). In the next section, we provide suggestions for future studies on PDW.

The suggestion of an agenda for future studies on PDW focused on two perspectives: (i) to explore topics that have already been widely analyzed, over the years, but from the challenges of the contemporary context; and (ii) to investigate topics, approaches, and subjects that have not been studied yet, or little examined, in previous publications. These new studies should contribute to advance research based on the PDW theoretical lens, indicating paths to other academics.

Over the years, publications on PDW have been characterized by the prevalence of articles with a qualitative approach, through theoretical-empirical research and theoretical essays, with data collected through semi-structured or narrative interviews, focused on health professionals, and the relationship between PDW, occupational stress, and workers' mental health. For Alderson (2004), PDW refers to a field epistemology, embedded in the subjectivist paradigm, framed in the historical-hermeneutical sciences, which consider that reality is relative and linked to the historical moment, to the situation of social concerns, and to the available body of knowledge. This explains why almost all publications on PDW are qualitative.

In this scenario, as future studies, based on what has already been widely explored in PDW studies over the years, we suggest focusing on health professionals, in the context of the contemporary challenges of the world of labor. The Covid-19 pandemic is not completely extinct yet, and is still a challenge for healthcare providers. Changes in the world of labor, such as Industry 4.0, the increase of work precarization in the pandemic period, the new defensive strategies that these professionals had to develop and still have, to adjust to the contemporary environment, lack studies regarding PDW macro-dimensions (work context, work dynamics, work experiences, and working states).

In mapping the articles indexed in Scopus, we also found clinical case reports, experience reports, systematic literature reviews, and bibliometric studies, although, in a smaller number than theoretical-empirical studies and theoretical essays. As for the approach, we also found two quali-quantitative studies and the four quantitative bibliometric studies presented here.

Hence, considering what was little explored over the years in studies on PDW, we suggest investigating the feasibility of studying PDW from a quantitative approach; for example, with the development and validation of measurement scales. We also propose to expand systematic literature review studies and bibliometric studies, relating PDW to other contemporary topics.

Regarding the identified empirical gaps, covering workers that were little, or not studied yet, through the theoretical lens of PDW, we suggest examining informal workers, self-employed, freelancers, professional interns, casual workers, volunteers, outsourced workers, teachers, workers in hazardous professions, and Economy of the Sea professionals. In addition, to deepen the studies on health professionals, because with the pandemic and the challenges they faced, PDW still has much to contribute for understanding their work.

We also suggest studies on the changes and consequences on the work of teachers and healthcare professionals in general, after the Covid-19 pandemic, such as Nursing professionals, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, and dentists. Work overload during that period reset their work environment and increased the problems of illness and suffering at work, such as burnout, which they already experienced before the pandemic

Table 4 gathers propositions for future studies, indicating new subjects and research topics on PDW.

Table 4
Agenda for future studies, indicating new subjects and topics for PDW research

Source: Developed by the authors

We suggest research on the following topics: the future of work, work precarization and technology, PDW in the context of Industry 4.0, work typologies, increasing work precarization in the contemporary context, including the Gig economy, pleasure and suffering at work under these uncertain conditions, sustainable work, as well as the future of PDW, education, and the Economy of the Sea.

Other relevant topics would be to study PDW and diversity management, analyzing the challenges for women working in the so-called male professions, and the work of men in professions culturally classified as feminine, the work of persons with disabilities (PWD), the challenges of black and LGTBTQIA+ workers, as well as the challenges of multicultural work environments, with the presence of people from different countries and their influence on the work environment and context.

In this article, we mapped the bibliometric profile of publications on Psychodynamics of Work and proposed an agenda for future studies. Considering the Scopus database, when analyzing the evolution of articles on this topic, we found that the first publication was in 1970. The next occurred only in the 1990s, with three articles. The years with the largest number of published papers were 2011, 2013, 2017, and 2019, the latter being the apex in publications on PDW.

The four bibliometric studies found in the initial survey, for characterizing the research gap, consisted of papers by the following authors: Reis, Castro e Silva, and Zille (2020), Sousa et al. (2020), Conde, Cardoso, and Klipan (2019), and Machado, Macêdo, and Machado (2017). However, the four publications used databases of less international coverage than Scopus, and shorter period of analysis (we covered the period between 1970 and 2022). Reis, Castro e Silva and Zille (2020) analyzed 101 publications indexed in Google Scholar, SciELO, and Spell databases, from 2015 to 2019, while Sousa et al. (2020) examined publications on PDW indexed in the Web of Science, from 1970 to 2018, and found only 49.

Conde et al. (2019) searched publications in the SciELO database, from 2005 to 2015, and found 20 articles published in Brazil, while Machado et al. (2017) looked into international publications on PDW proposed by Dejours, published between 2000 and 2014, in English and French languages, indexed in the Capes Journal Portal, and identified 50 articles. These studies faced greater limitations than our study; however, they were essential for identifying research gaps and proposing an agenda for future studies on PDW.

Among the most cited articles, we highlight the studies by Arnaud (2012), with 49 citations; Dejours (2006), with 33; Dashtipour and Vidaillet (2017), with 31; Deranty (2009), with 26; and Sigahi et al. (2021), with 25 citations. The areas with the largest number of publications were Psychology, Social Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Business, Management, and Accounting. As for the main journals that published these articles, in the 1990s and early 2000s, the journal Santé Mentale au Quebec stood out, while the journal Travailler concentrated the highest number of publications from 2001 to 2022.

The main home countries of researchers who wrote articles on PDW were Brazil, France, and Canada. Similarly, publications on PDW indexed in Scopus are mainly linked to Brazilian universities, such as University of São Paulo (USP), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), University of Brasília (UnB) and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, and to French-speaking foreign universities, like Conservatoire National des Artes et Métiers, Université de Paris, Université Laval, and University of Montreal.

We suggest an agenda of future research, focusing on joint studies of individuals and topics that can foster the development of PDW. Among the persons, we mention workers in the informal economy, freelance and self-employed workers, casual workers, workers in dangerous professions, volunteer workers, professional trainees, workers in the Economy of the Sea, teachers in different levels of education, outsourced workers in hospitals, public universities, public schools, condominiums, and a deeper focus on PDW of health professionals.

We also propose to deepen the studies on the influence of Covid-19 on the work of health professionals, in particular. But, also to extend them to other jobs most affected by the pandemic, like teachers in hybrid education, and all categories of health workers. Besides focusing on Nursing and Medicine professionals, we also mention physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, and dentists.

As for the topics of future studies, we mentioned studies on work precarization in the contemporary context of labor, including the Gig economy, pleasure and suffering at work under conditions of uncertainty, as well as studying PDW and the future of work, PDW and workers in the Economy of the Sea, PDW and the challenges of gender relations and work, PDW and management of diversity in general (gender, race, people with physical disabilities, autistic workers, and foreigners working with immigrants and expatriates), PDW and sustainable work, and PDW and remote work.

The main limitation of this paper was the difficulty to access the full text of some papers, for data collection and document analysis. Many articles are not available in full for open access. In addition, the choice of a database excludes papers from other databases, restricting the final sample. We suggest complementing the bibliometric analysis by carrying out content analysis of the titles, abstracts and methodology sections of all articles, for a more detailed description of the bibliometric profile of these studies.

Finally, regarding the contributions and impact of this study, we highlight the range of the analyzed period, which involves 53 years of research on Psychodynamics of Work (from 1970 to 2022), the exploration of the Scopus database, which presents more scientific articles and a higher impact factor for the indexed journals. We also outlined the state of the art on PDW in that database, in addition to suggesting a research agenda to guide the activities of research groups, the preparation of scientific articles, theses, and dissertations by graduate students, and help professors choose the main topics to teach on PDW.