In Managing Stress in Times of Uncertainty, Dr. Leonard M. Moss, tells the story of his highly unusual career using psychoanalytic expertise to help organizations, their employees and individuals deal with crises, transitions, the erosion of employee loyalty, and job loss. The case histories included throughout the book illustrate how to assist individuals to think constructively about their work and life experiences, and to apply what they learned to solve future problems. The author usies his extensive experience serving as a consultant to major corporations such as Mobil, American Express, and General Motors, to demonstrate how to address the impact employees experience during corporate restructuring and downsizing, the merger of conflicting work cultures, and the closing of a manufacturing plant that was the mainstay of its community. Dr. Moss believes that fundamental changes in behavior achieved through company-sponsored training and development exercises are rarely sustained unless underlying life, stress, interpersonal, or personality factors are modified as well. His year-long confidential Executive Development Program focuses on interpersonal relationships, past experiences, and emotions, as well as career goals and work performance. CEOs turned to the executive development process to help outstanding performers develop the interpersonal skills and empathy necessary for them to become leaders. Case histories demonstrate his unique and highly sucessful Executive Development Process. Many issues facing our society today are reflected in his long and eventful career. Dr. Moss discusses his treatment of seriously suicidal patients, the relationship between the overcrowded New York City prison environment and inmate suicidal behavior, and the stress of living and working on giant offshore oil production platforms in Norway. Having made the critical career decision to leave the comfort of office practice and consult on-site with major organizations, Dr. Moss's work took him to exotic locations. He describes how he entered a New York City police station to take custody of a suicidal patient; startled at the ominous clanging of doors closing behind him as he entered the Manhattan House of Detention for Men; travelled in a helicopter over the turbulent North Sea to reach a Hotel on a Volcano, otherwise known as the Statfjord-A oil production platform; and attended the executive committee meetings of a major corporation to observe how executives related to each other. Dr. Moss discusses how to establish a collaborative bond with patients and business clients that enables them to review their life and work and plan for the future. He quotes advances in neuroscience that have begun to define the neural substrates through which psychotherapy produces adaptive change. Fascinating, informative and inspiring, this book is an invaluable quide to any reader coping with the uncertainties of life, as well as a useful resource for employers, human resources and mental health professonals.
About the Author: After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College and an honorable discharge from the United States Navy, Leonard Moss returned to earn a Doctor of Medicine from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Certificate in Psychoanalytic Medicine from the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center. He is Board Certified in Psychiatry and Neurology, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Moss served as consultant on personnel matters for major corporations, including American Express and First Data Corporation, and for almost three decades as Mobil Oil's part-time in-house consulting psychiatrist on matters of stress. He has treated patients and clients for problems related to stress, ranging from mild depression to persons in suicidal crisis. His experience reaches from the factory floor to an oil production platform in the wild North Sea to the executive suite. Author of "Management Stress" (1981), a volume in the acclaimed Addison-Wesley Series on Occupational Stress, Dr. Moss has written extensively on managing depression and violence in the workplace, executive development and the role of psychiatrists in industry. He was a member of the Task Force on Psychiatry and Industry for the American Psychiatric Association, and among the founding members of the Academy of Organizational and Occupational Psychiatry. He retired in 2006 to write "Managing Stress in Times of Uncertainty."