ABSTRACT
This chapter delineates why so many employees complain, "this job is driving me crazy". It explores some of the more troubling interpersonal, group and organizational processes that contribute to intense, often longstanding worker unhappiness. The chapter focuses on problems that emerge due to the continuing interaction between the worker and some pathological aspect of his work setting that are particularly receptive to psychoanalytic understanding, such as coping with an irrational boss, small group, or organization. It shows the illustrative problems in the workplace as the consequence of a dynamic interaction between the individual and the work setting. All work organizations "select and mold character", and they can bring out psychopathology in their employees that was not necessarily there in the first place. Thus, psychopathology, like any kind of behavior, is best phenomenologically conveyed and de-constructed, in terms of individual psychology that is indissolubly context-dependent and setting-specific.
