Chained to the Desk (Second Edition): A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children, and the Clinicians Who Treat Them

Being a workaholic doesn't just mean being a hard worker, says Robinson, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of North Carolina who has been studying people's work habits for years. It means you've got a progressively worsening addiction like any other, in which work becomes the substance you use in an attempt to meet your unconscious psychological needs. Robinson calls workaholism the "best-dressed addiction," because it's often rewarded--at least in the short term--and is seen as a positive attribute by people who don't understand the destruction it can cause. Chained to the Desk provides worksheets to help you recognize whether you or someone close to you is a work addict, case studies that demonstrate workaholic ways of thinking, and treatment methods that involve the entire family. It sheds considerable light on a topic that mental-health professionals often don't recognize--in part because, as Robinson points out, many of them are workaholics themselves. --Ben Kallen, Personal Growth editor