The homeostatic or medical approach was the first approach discovered by Walter B. Cannon. This is basically looking at stress from a medical perspective describing stress as our emergency response. This is where the idea of "fight or flight" comes to play. Cannon described the response as the body's natural reactions of striving to remain or return to a homeostatic or balanced level.
The second approach or cognitive appraisal approach deals with people's perceptions of problems. This deals more with how certain things may bother one person more than another. This approach was developed by Richard Lazarus who also introduced problem-focused coping (focusing on stressor or problem) and emotion-focused coping (focuses on your response).
The person-environment fit approach was developed by Robert Kahn. This approach dealt with how well a person's skills and abilities matched their job or task. It also takes into consideration how clear or well defined the person's role within the organization is. This approach emphasizes how confusing and conflicting expectations of a person in a social role create stress.
The final approach is the psychoanalytic approach, which was developed by Harry Levinson. Levinson believed that the interaction between one's ego-ideal (embodiment of person's perfect self) and their self image (how person truly sees them) causes stress. "More generally, psychoanalytic theory helps us understand the role of unconscious personality factors as causes of stress within a person." (Nelson, 2003) .
Over the past few decades, many people are hearing more about job related stress. With many households depending on duel incomes, people are working more and having less leisure time. Many claim that job stress has contributed to such illnesses as heart disease, depression, gastric problems, exhaustion, and many other related illnesses. .
This paper will focus on the background issues surrounding stress; as well as, the steps that need to be taken by the employer as well as one's self.
