When Work Becomes a Substitute for Love
What if the drive to succeed is, at its core, a desperate bid for love?
In many lives, work has quietly become an addiction — a relentless effort to stave off a terrifying sense of worthlessness. Drawing on Dr Gabor Maté's concept of the hungry ghost and the realities of clinical practice, this piece explores workaholism as a wound in search of healing.
In many ways as modern people, we are familiar with the notion of addiction. It has become an adjective, at times denoting something desirable - an “addictive” TV series, or video game, or phone app, or type of chocolate.
We have socially acceptable addictions, such as coffee and work, socially tolerated ones, such as gambling, and socially condemned, such as “hard” or illicit drugs.
However, less obvious is the fact that certain of our emotional and behavioural patterns can also be a type of addictive process. For example the need to be “successful”, which masks a deep fear of failure and unlovability.
A common feature of all addictions is the attempt to sooth and manage painful internal states with things derived not from the inside of oneself but from the outside - be it a substance, an experience, or a behavioural pattern. If I don’t understand or cannot deal with the hurt, emptiness and torment inside of me, I will reach for something outside of me to help - something quick, available, instantaneous.
The trouble is, relying on addictive inputs to sooth pain and emptiness is at best a temporary relief, and leaves us hungry - the true need for love, healing, empathy, hope and connection still lacking.
Dr Gabor Mate, in his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, borrows from the Buddhist Wheel of Life, the Mandala, to describe people living with addiction. This wheel revolves through six realms. The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are shown as creatures with thin necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty stomachs. These ghosts are constantly eating, but perpetually hungry, because the “food” they eat can never fill their true need of love, empathy, and connection. They seek the ghost realm to avoid being trapped in the Hell Realm - a place of unbearable rage and anxiety.
An addiction that I see more than any other in my practice currently is workaholism. Individuals often report “symptoms” such as not having any time for themselves or their loved ones, working late into evenings, obsessing and ruminating about possible failures on their part, feeling burned out, flat, demotivated, and lacking any joy in their lives. They appear as if at the mercy of a merciless taskmaster, who never allows them to breathe, but is constantly surveilling their every move, terrified of displeasing this cruel deity and incurring their wrath and punishment.
The core of workaholism is an often invisible, desperate bid for approval and self-esteem. Put another way workaholism is a frantic and tireless effort to stave off the terrifying possibility that the individual is “not good enough”, “worthless”, “a failure’. If only a person in this predicament can work harder - so they think - they won’t let anyone down, and therefore won’t be rejected, shamed, alone, worthless and terrified.
Where and how have such adults learned that they are worthless or not good enough? Here there are both immediate and ultimate causes. The more immediate causes are a society that values work, money and success above anything else, and shames those who do not work or have enough money, the “failed consumers” of Zygmunt Bauman. Added to this is the secular materialism that holds up consumerism as the new redemption, and “the market” as the deity in which we ought to trust and whom we ought placate.
The underlying cause usually is a lack of sufficient emotional intimacy with caregivers. These are situations in which the child’s emotional experiences are threatening to the parent and thus are pushed away, dismissed or ignored. Such attitudes on the part of the parent are not malicious in intent, but simply illustrate and repeat their own experiences as children. So these patterns are intergenerational. Various forms of childhood trauma are also common in the lives of those who develop addictions.
Ultimately, the path of healing from addiction is turning toward, and not way from, one’s pain. Only in this way can we see, understand, share, and care for the hurt, hidden, shame-prone and rejected parts of ourselves. Being the in presence of a therapist can help with this, as sharing one’s feelings with another can prove to be relieving and supportive. Only in acknowledging our pain and deeming it worthy of healing can we find escape from the realm of hungry ghosts.
Please reach out if this sounds like a process you are interested in exploring for yourself.
“The path of healing from addiction is turning toward, and not way from one’s pain.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jedrek Hagedorn is a Clinical Psychologist based in Carlton North, Melbourne, with a particular interest in relationships, self-esteem, emotional wellbeing and supporting new fathers. He holds a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and has experience across private and public psychiatric settings, crisis counselling, and working with a broad range of psychological and relationship difficulties.
