The Legal Governance of Occupational Mental Health

from Discursive Consensus to Effective Protection

Abstract

This gap between legal recognition and practical implementation manifests in three principal areas. At the preventive level, the management of psychosocial risks is still partial and heterogeneous, shaped by cultural inertia, insufficient methodological tools, and the lack of specialized technical expertise. At the benefits level, the exclusion of mental disorders from the official list of occupational diseases requires their forced accommodation within categories originally designed for physical risks, which complicates the recognition of work-related causation. Finally, liability mechanisms display limited effectiveness, largely due to evidentiary requirements that do not align with the multifactorial nature of these conditions.
In this context, workplace mental health remains a legal category in the process of formation. Its effective consolidation requires regulatory development, the technical strengthening of the preventive system, and a conceptual reassessment of traditional legal categories within labour law.