Work addiction, often called workaholism, is a real mental illness. Like any other addiction, workaholism is the inability to stop the behavior. It often stems from a compulsive need to achieve status and success, or to escape emotional stress. Work addiction is often driven by success at work. And it is common among people described as perfectionists.
Like someone with a drug addiction, a person with a work addiction achieves a "high" from working. This leads them to keep repeating the behavior that gets them so high. People with work addiction may not be able to stop the behavior, despite the negative ways it can affect their personal life or physical or mental health.
In a culture where hard work is praised and overtime is often expected, it can be difficult to recognize workaholism. People with workaholism will often justify their behavior by explaining why it is a good thing and can help them achieve success. They may just seem dedicated to their work or the success of their projects. However, ambition and addiction are very different.
A person with a work addiction may engage in compulsive work to avoid other aspects of their life, such as troubling emotional problems or personal crises. And as with other addictions, the person may engage in the behavior without being aware of the negative effects caused by the addiction.
Symptoms of workaholism include:
- Putting in long hours at the office, even when not needed
- Losing sleep to participate in work projects or complete tasks
- Being obsessed with work-related success
- Having intense fear of failure at work
- Being paranoid about work-related performance
- disintegrating personal relationships because of work
- Have a defensive attitude toward others about their work
- Using work as a way to avoid relationships
- Work on dealing with guilt or depression
- Work to avoid dealing with crises such as death, divorce or financial problems
Treatment BeterKlinic
BeterKliniek is the clinic for Integrative Medicine that bridges regular and non-regular medicine.
An van Veen (physician) and Michael van Gils (therapist) look for the cause of a condition or disease. That is where the treatment starts otherwise, as people often say, it is 'carrying water to the sea'. We call this cause medicine. Sometimes it is also desirable to treat the symptoms (at the same time). We call this symptom medicine.
Chronic disorders often have their cause in epi- genetics. You can schedule a free informative telephone consultation (phone number 040-7117337 until 1 p.m.) at BeterKliniek to discuss your symptoms so that we can provide you with further advice.
