Establishing a casual relationship between work and mental illnesses has been at the center of theoretical debates and considered a rather polemic issue, being one of the controversies in the field of mental health and work. In this article, we analyzed an appraisal written by a judicial expert and the opinion of the assistant experts, concerning the health conditions of a bank security worker who brought a compensation suit for moral damages at a Labor Court in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The experts concluded that there was no causal link between the mental disorders manifested by the worker and his work, which led the sentence to be against the worker. However, we presented evidences that his work experience should have been considered as a determinant factor for the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) he suffered from. At the end, we discussed the importance of improving the diagnostic analysis of workers affected by mental disorders.
posttraumatic stress disorder; work; security worker; judicial investigation