ABSTRACT
Obtaining personal satisfaction from work is a central animating force in people's lives. Those who derive pleasure from their work are considered most fortunate, and those who change their lives to obtain more satisfaction from work are most admired. Work is carried out in groups or at least with reference to social groups. S. Freud was pessimistic about the potential for deriving pleasure from work. His few comments on work were made later in life, when he elaborated the tragic opposition between instinctual gratification and civilization. M. Jahoda suggested that work provides an important means by which the pleasure and the reality principles are synthesized. Work not only ties a person to reality but offers the means by which he can obtain uniquely adult sources of pleasure. Developing the capacity to maintain focus and see a complex task through to completion in face of competing demands for attention is an essential part of working.
