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How often do we consider the importance of work in the lives of our patients and in our own? Multiple emotions, energy, and time are invested in work. What is work? Is work a place? A job? A vocation? Is it an activity relevant to personal development? Is work simply an arena where behavioral
manifestations of healthy or maladaptive development are expressed? Or, is work an instrumental force in the character development of an individual? We live in a rapidly changing, dynamic and challenging time which demands self awareness as a cornerstone for success in the workplace. It has become essential for clinicians to consider the realities of work demands on their patients and enrich their own understanding of the impact of work on the evolution of self, interpersonal relations, and the achievement of health and well-being.
This is a scholarly book, a beginning effort in a new area of psychoanalytic inquiry. It is a solid foundation from which one can embark on further exploration of work and its inhibitions. Socarides and Kramer present articles that explore work problems which are based on personal difficulty in integrating libidinal and aggressive drives. The editors have invited a panel of contributing authors who approach the psychodynamics of work inhibitions from diverse theoretical orientations-classical, developmental, self psychology and object relations, as well as the psychoanalytic theory of learning.
Several contributors recall the importance Freud gave to the relationship between “lieben and arbeiten,” love and work. In his thoughtful essay, Wolf reminds the reader of Freud's cautionary guidance related to expectations of treatment: “be content if one has won back some degree of capacity for work and enjoyment” (p. 119). Wolf differentiates work from Freud's instinctually driven view of love. Wolf claims that love is a manifestation of internally motivated forces. Work, in contrast, is an individual's response to a “compelling environment” (p. 101). Wolf