ABSTRACT
Stress can be very loosely defined as “ the process of adjusting to circumstances that disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, a person’s equilibrium” (Bernstein et al, 1988). Whilst this definition is somewhat vague, it does illustrate the difficulty of trying to formulate a universal definition. That a recent ESCA-NATO Workshop failed to provide a single standard definition, and that it arrived at six definitions, illustrates, as Cox states, how “elusive ... [and]... poorly defined” stress can be (in: Murray et al, 1996).
