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This book takes a psychoanalytic perspective on work and its significance for pathology, treatment, and individual development. The book begins with a review of the psychoanalytic literature pertaining to these subjects, including theories the author will later invoke to justify his clinical strategies. For the most part this is a clinical book, with many case vignettes illustrating the author's thesis that the psychoanalytic therapist should be aggressive in taking every opportunity to identify and intervene in patients' work-related problems. Axelrod claims his thesis is a much-needed corrective to the tendency among psychoanalytic clinicians to dismiss the centrality of the work experience in the life and pathology of their patients.
In essence, Axelrod's clinical approach is to focus on the “reality” of the patient's work situation and on the significance of the patient's past as it determines the nature of present-day problems regarding work. Doing so tends to position the therapist to adopt a strategy, either supportive or authoritative and directive. While some therapists and vocational counselors may find these strategies useful, they may be of less interest to those with a more psychoanalytic clinical orientation. The therapists who treat the patients in Axelrod's book do not listen with evenly hovering attention, nor do they respond with the kind of