Work Therapy: Or The Man Who Mistook His Job for His Life

Nov 15, 2024 7:41 AM

Author:Naomi Shragai

'Is 2023 the year you want to change your working life? Perhaps you want to stop catastrophising about small mistakes, instil a better job/life balance or find new mechanisms to cope with a nightmare boss. Solutions to these problems, as well as an array of other office issues, are what Naomi Shragai offers in Work Therapy. If you're searching for a new way to handle office politics, you could well find the answers in this book.' - Sunday Times

There's no place like home...or work?

You probably don't realise this, but every working day you replay and re-enact conflicts, dynamics and relationships from your past. Whether it's confusing an authority figure with a parent; avoiding conflict because of past squabbles with siblings; or suffering from imposter syndrome because of the way your family responded to success, when it comes to work we are all trapped in our own upbringings and the patterns of behaviour we learned while growing up.

Many of us spend eighteen formative years or more living with family and building our personality; but most of us also spend fifty years - or 90,000 hours - in the workplace. With the pull of the familial so strong, we unconsciously re-enact our personal past in our professional present - even when it holds us back.

Through intimate stories, fascinating insights and provocative questions, business psychotherapist Naomi Shragai will transform how you think about yourself and your working life. Based on thirty years of expertise and practice, Shragaiwill show you that what is holding you back is within your gift to change - and the first step is to realise how you, like the rest of the people you work with, habitually confuse your professional present with your personal past.

Reviews

Work is emotional. But the foundational fiction of jobs - that they are separate from the people who do them - causes grief and frustration every day. The gift of this book is to help us understand who we are, who our co-workers are, in the round, as flesh and blood, not economic units of production. It can help managers and the managed, bosses and the bossed, to find in work and in each other the humanity and warmth, growth and forgiveness that this crucial part of our lives deserves.

—— Margaret Heffernan, author of Wilful Blindness

Nobody understands the everyday madness of working life better than Naomi Shragai. This book should be read by everyone who ventures anywhere near an office.

—— Lucy Kellaway, Financial Times

Wise and illuminating... A must read for those who care about the human side of work, which should be all of us.

—— Kerry Sulkowicz, President-elect of the American Psychoanalytic Association

A Miracle of a book...Captivating... I couldn't put it down. As Carl Jung once warned, "when an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." People would do well to not leave things to fate but have a serious look at this book.

—— Manfred Kets de Vries, Professor of Leadership at INSEAD and author of The CEO Whisperer

A great book, packed with insights and evocative human stories.

—— David Tuckett, Director of UCL’s Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty

—— Manfred Kets de Vries, Professor of Leadership at INSEAD and author of The CEO Whisperer

A great book, packed with insights and evocative human stories.

—— David Tuckett, Director of UCL’s Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty

Nobody understands the everyday madness of working life better than Naomi Shragai. This book should be read by everyone who ventures anywhere near an office.

—— Lucy Kellaway, Financial Times

A completely compelling guide to the inner psychological workings of our jobs - brilliantly enlightening and incidentally a vital survival guide.

—— Bruce Daisley

This is a fantastic insight into the childhood self we thought we left behind but actually brought into work by accident. A great guide to understanding yourself and others better. Life-changing.

—— Viv Groskop, author of How to Own the Room

[An] energetic account...[Vance] ably captures 'the spectacular madness of it all.' With enthusiasm and solid research, this book is an entertaining, informative look at cutting-edge technology

—— Kirkus

Ashlee Vance writes about a new kind of space race marked by private companies launching rockets and putting a massive number of satellites into orbit. The characters behind this new fight to dominate the skies are just as interesting as the ones [Tom] Wolfe wrote about decades ago . . . Vance's behind-the-scenes access to the companies helps explain the challenges the private space industry faces and propels the book along as he describes failed rocket launches and globe-trotting investors

—— Associated Press

One of the best books ever written about NewSpace . . . An incredibly entertaining account of today's space industry . . . Well-written and thrilling . . . When the Heavens Went on Sale is a timely read that introduces readers to the exciting business of launching small satellites. The space-based economy is just getting started

—— National Space Society

Well-researched and insightful . . . An excellent addition to science or biography collections

—— Library Journal

A fascinating read about an emerging, rapidly changing industry . . . If, for any reason, you thought the people in the space industry were boring, When the Heavens Went on Sale will make it clear they far from it

—— The Space Review

The book chronicles an enthralling Wild West of ego, idealism, and regulation-skirting greed, where soaring dreams are weighed down by economics and physics. CEOs, investors, engineers, and welders alike are smitten, but their efforts yield mostly pedestrian tools that track cargo ships, measure crop growth, or make phone calls. Still, the projects keep multiplying. "Something about space," Vance writes, "allows humans to perceive themselves as being part of a timeless story and casting their lot in with the infinite

—— Harvard Business Review

Full of colorful people, risky investments, and teachable explosions, Vance's book is fascinating

—— Philadelphia Inquirer

In a work both magisterial and elliptical, Odell takes on the concept of 'time' from every conceivable angle ... This is both an irresistible big-idea book an a guide to rethinking a burning world

—— LA Times

A penetrating, provocative investigation into the subject of time - how to understand and live with it - on both an individual and societal level ... impressive

—— Shelf Awareness

Temporal structure has its comforts, particularly following a tumultuous three years ... That yo-you effect [of the last few years] drew me to Saving Time, Jenny Odell's sharp book tracing the cultural forces that shape our conception of time

—— Laura Regensdorf, Vanity Fair

Odell fights to provide us with an alternative way to experience the time we have

—— i Paper

Ambitious ... a pleasure to read ... thought-provoking

—— New Scientist

A sweeping yet personal challenge to assumptions Western society makes about the relationships between individuals and the finite hours in a given day

—— Time Magazine

Odell argues convincingly that our daily experience is dominated by the corporate clock that so many of us contort ourselves to fit inside

—— Irish Independent

The best beach read of the year ... Read it, and then think deeply about how you are reading your own time

—— The Media Leader

Odell's latest book, Saving Time, is great at analysing where a lot of our notions about how to use our time came from (hint: capitalism).

—— RTE Ireland

One of President Barack Obama's 'Favourite books of 2019'

—— President Barack Obama on How To Do Nothing

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