Starting from the conceptual differentiation of suffering, pain and illness, we tried to find, through previous literary works and interviews with workers and managers, elements to demonstrate the existence of a transformation process that turns suffering into illness in the work management area. This process is not only related with the production and reproduction of discourses originally from the scientific medicine, but also with a set of practices supported, in the present time, by the occupational medicine. The evidences of our research point to the attempt of silencing this suffering and to the existence of an illness promotion culture in the company space. This situation involves workers, health professionals, and managers with the complicity of the families whose workers are identified as patients. However, some cases have shown resistance to this process, which constitutes a real counter-illness movement. After these elements we came to the conclusion that, during these two centuries of scientific medicine, despite the desire of changing and renewing practices and investments, iatrogenic acts and violence still have been done in the name of science, of health, and of workers well-being.
Psychic suffering; Worker's health; Psychodynamic of work; Occupational health