This article reports the experience of a psychology service treating sales associates with mental disorders, and aims at discussing the deleterious effects caused by work organization risk factors within the service sector. Mental suffering is studied focusing on workers' complain of lack of recognition, their conflict between family and work, and on the ethical conflict presented by some employees of one of the companies. Data of eight workers were collected by semi-structured interviews as well as through the clinical material during psychotherapy sessions. All workers received care at the Worker's Health Reference Center, in Diadema, in São Paulo metropolitan area, from 2006 to 2009. Data revealed how workers' identity was threatened by numerous strategies causing an existential vacuum that led to mental ilness. In this structure, the association between ludic and work in adult life was lost, causing a discontinuity of the development process of the being.
mental health and work; occupational risks; work environment; psychoanalysis; sales associate
