In this paper, I propose that clinical mental health and psychology professionals can adopt the knowledge and methods of industrial/organizational psychology and organizational consultation for their assessment of organizations and groups, together with the perspective of individual assessment. To understand an organization in its entirety, it is necessary to consider its developmental history, organizational structure, and organizational culture, as well as the organization itself as an open system. In practice, the types of clients, the dynamics of group structure, and the irrationality and defensiveness of groups are also important to consider. I argue that using these perspectives could increase the professionals' effectiveness in supporting workers' mental health in industrial fields.

The field of industrial and organizational psychology has long been interested in work motivation as a critical determinant of performance. Regarding the sources of work motivation, it has traditionally been thought that motivation can be extrinsic or intrinsic. However, self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002) has been proposed in recent years, in which even a given job can change from an extrinsic motivation to an autonomous motivation, depending on the meaningfulness and self-determination toward the job. Furthermore, traditional motivation theories implicitly assume duties that are based on the achievement of goals and performance. In contrast, the sources of motivation under duties that assume the completion of tasks by avoiding failures and errors have not been focused on. In this paper, we introduce the self-worth sufficiency model as a model to explain the sources of motivation. Finally, we discussed the “paradox of work motivation,” in which the more one tries to elicit autonomous motivation, the more motivation is lost.

Group dynamics, a crucial subfield in industrial/organizational psychology and social psychology, investigates processes taking place in groups. This paper provides an overview of the study of group dynamics, focusing on work groups, with the intention of integrating these insights in the field of industrial stress research. The paper first outlines the fundamental characteristics of group dynamics, described as basic perspectives. The discussion then examines two principal areas: the “basic process of groups,” which is primarily investigated within social psychology, and findings on “teamwork,” a pivotal idea in group research. The conclusion discusses the implications of group dynamics for the study of industrial stress, emphasizing the synthesis of these fields.

Supervisors play a significant role in reducing employee stress. This review paper examines the recent literature on leadership and stress, looking at leadership behaviors as both a cause of follower stress and a consequence of leader stress. Recent findings suggest the following. (1) Transformational leadership and high-level leader–member exchange predict higher positive well-being and lower stress or burnout among employees by providing resources and reducing job demands or satisfying psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. (2) Leader stress or depleted resources are associated with higher levels of abusive supervision. (3) Transformational leader behaviors are likely to consume the leaders’ resources; however, whether the depleted transformational leader reduces follower or leader positive well-being remains unclear. This study also discusses the implications and future directions.

Stress has been proposed to have negative impact on mental health, and while factors and processes contributing to this relationship have been suggested, the mechanisms through with stress influences human errors, such as action slips, cognitive slips and cognitive failures, remain largely unclear. Therefore, this study aims to elucidate the mechanisms through which stress induces human errors, based on the factors contributing to the occurrence of human errors. The primary mechanisms by which stress induces human errors involve the depletion of attention and consciousness (working memory, WM) capacity required to execute controlled processes. This depletion is caused by intrusive thoughts related to stress that consume cognitive resources. Consequently, the effective suppression of automatic processes or interfering stimuli that should not be executed is hindered. Additionally, in high-pressure situations, anxiety may divert unnecessary attention and consciousness (WM) toward well-practiced automatic processes, causing those processes to malfunction, thus can lead to human errors.

This study aims to clarify the influence of social changes brought about by COVID-19 on the health conditions, especially the mental health and work engagement, of small- and medium-sized company workers. This longitudinal survey has been running since February 2020 and we have analyzed the data collected in February 2020 (pre-pandemic), August 2020 (after the first state of emergency), and August 2021 (during the fourth state of emergency) from 264 participants who responded to all three surveys. The results show 1) on the whole men presented higher stress levels than women regardless of the pandemic; 2) the “utilization of skills" score of managers worsened in 2020, which might have resulted from the changes in the staff management system due to the workstyle change, and 3) work engagement scores stayed the same during the pandemic, which agrees with the results of previous studies. Gradually, sleep conditions worsened, exercise frequency declined and drinking level increased, which may require long-term careful observation. As remote work and changes in lifestyle may affect sleep conditions, exercise, and drinking levels, future surveys should ask the participants if they work from home and how their lifestyle changes.

Various efforts are being made in each municipality to address the mental health of teachers. It is expected that school-visiting counseling, in which counselors visit schools to provide counseling, will be effective in increasing opportunities for counseling, but there are many unknowns regarding its implementation nationwide. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 67 local governments across Japan, asking them about their own mental health counseling systems for teachers and what they expect from school counselors.

As a result, we received responses from 43 municipalities, 23 of which have a system where counselors are dispatched to schools to provide counseling, with some municipalities receiving more than 9,000 cases of counseling annually. The responses regarding expectations of school counselors were analyzed using the KJ method, and were categorized into five major groups: “essential duties,” “familiar counseling service,” “collaboration,” “information sharing,” and “status quo”.

This study revealed the possibility that school-visiting counseling may lead to securing counseling opportunities, and that school counselors are expected to support the mental health of teachers, and that the activities of school counselors may contribute to supporting the mental health of the teachers.