Introduction

“Without work, all life goes rotten,” said Albert Camus, “but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies” (www.oxfordreference.com). ¹ Indeed, Camus’ astute observation resonates with most people who seriously reflect on the problem of what it takes to fashion a work life that is joyful, or at least satisfying, over a sustained period of time. ² To loathe one’s work, or to experience it as barely tolerable, is a kind of personal horror that calls to mind a bad marriage or failed relationship with a significant other in which one feels utterly trapped. Regrettably, in western society this feeling of disenchantment with one’s work life is fairly common; phrases like “I am burned out,” “I am only working for the pay check,” “I can’t stand my job” punctuate ordinary conversations with adults who honestly convey their feelings about work life. In my activities as a psychoanalyst and psychologist I have been struck by how so many patients are distressed for one reason or another by their work life, the subject getting more talking time than their love lives. Indeed, it is a blessed soul who can affirm what Thomas A. Edison allegedly said: “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun” (www.inspirational-quotations.com). Edison’s incredible confession may be rooted in the fact that he had an enviably healthy attitude towards failure as an inventor: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” (Farrington, 2014, p. 75). As clinical research psychologist Ann Roe noted, “Occupation plays an immensely important role in the life of the individual,” including of one’s economic and social status, and “if one wishes to understand the total psychology of any person, it is at least as important to understand his occupational behavior as it is to understand his sexual behavior. (They are not unrelated)” (1956, pp. 24, vi). More recently, French psychoanalyst Christophe Dejours wrote that “the relation to work is intertwined with the sexual economy” (2015a, p. xv), that is, with the attitudes and behaviors in the personal realm, including body-ego, body-image and love relationships. Moreover, the psychodynamics of work are “always involved, both in the construction of mental health [i.e., psychological functioning] and in the genesis of [psychiatric] illness,” such as in the worsening of a patient’s health and their ability for recovery (ibid., p. xvii). Finally, Dejours notes that “the theoretical and clinical questions raised by the impact of the pressures of professional life [“the experience of work,” 2especially its psychopathology] on mental health remain poorly understood by psychiatrists” (2015b, p. 1) and other mental health professionals (Thomas and Hersen, 2004).