Professors

mental suffering at the public university?

Abstract

This article discusses the professors’ mental suffering at the contemporary Brazilian public university. This research was carried out in a university (Instituição Federal de Ensino Superior - IFES), in partnership with the University Teachers Union, resulting from semi-structured interviews and participant observations in conversation meetings on the research’s subject. In this text, part of the data resulting from this exploratory research will be presented. It was identified that professors’ mental suffering is invisible and that those who communicate it are called to normalize their expressions, configuring them as an individual, psychiatric, or legal issue. Also, equally individualizing strategies were identified to deal with daily suffering. The discussion carried out in the article highlights the collective and institutional character of the reported suffering, relating it to the expansion processes, changes in career, and other processes related to the working conditions and to the established professional relationships. Academic “productivism”, harassment among peers, and forms of evaluation within the university were configured as the main causes of suffering among teachers, permeated by competition, individualism, and the absence of a sense of belonging to a collective. Among the main strategies used as a response to mental suffering are isolation, attempting internal mobility, and disqualification of a graduate program. We conclude that the mental suffering of teachers is an issue that requires attention, especially because of its impact on academic life, which takes the form of the first cause for absences from work.