The Injured Worker

The lives of workers in this country are suffused with insecurity and anger, exacerbated by abuse and institutionalized powerlessness. On-the-job injuries, both physical and psychological, are thus inevitable. Using her experience over several years treating nine such injured workers, mostly blue-collar and all minority women, in psychotherapy, the author examines the damage inflicted on her patients as they struggle to cope with their work-related losses. The history, structure, and destructive impact on claimants of workers' compensation programs are described, and psychoanalytic understanding of trauma provides insight into the painful inner and outer worlds of these women.