Why Working Harder Isn’t Always the Answer

Understanding work as a compulsion through a therapy case study

Image created with Dall-E

Whether you’re grinding away at work or trying to enjoy a moment of rest, there’s a nagging voice that says,

“You’re not doing enough.”

This was the reality for my patient, let’s call him Alex.

As a teacher, Alex spent his days preparing lessons and his nights haunted by the feeling that even his downtime should serve some productive purpose. He was running on inertia, a relentless drive that didn’t seem to come from anywhere specific, yet never let him stop.

As a psychotherapist with over three years of experience with cases of anxiety, self-growth, and anger management, among others, I even saw myself reflected in this case (stemming from my own past with a tendency to work too much).

But there’s always a way to break the cycle. Here’s a breakthrough we experienced in therapy.

The origin of inertia

To understand this, we traced back to Alex’s teenage years. He was always hitting the books — partly for the grades, but also because he genuinely enjoyed learning. But when I asked him why he studied so much back then, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know, it was…