CHAINED TO THE DESK

CHAINED TO THE DESK: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their
Partners and Children, and The Clinicians Who Treat Them
Bryan E. Robinson, PhD
New York: New York University Press
260 pages, hardback, $24.95
ISBN 0-8147-7480-6

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

Which would you read first: a 25-item quiz to determine if you are a workaholic, or a list of famous quotations about work addiction?

If you opt for the quiz, you probably also want a fast summary of this book. Here it is:

True workaholics are driven by internal needs, rather than external ones, says Bryan E. Robinson, professor of counseling, special education, and child development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The single mom who works two jobs to pay her bills, or the accountant who works seven days a week in tax season aren't the people he is talking about. They just may be hard workers.

Workaholics, Robinson suggests, often neglect family and friends and use or abuse work to escape from intimacy and social relationships. Employers often value those who come early, stay late, and take full briefcases home. They reward workaholics with high incomes and positions of power. "Workaholism," Robinson says, "is the best-dressed problem of the twentieth century."

Drawing on his clinical practice as a psychotherapist who has worked with hundreds of workaholics, he provides numerous case examples, perspective on workaholics' childhoods, and insight into their thinking. He includes interviews with spouses and children, showing the emotional toll that work addiction exacts from others.

For workaholics seeking change, he offers guidance, not as facile as it may sound here in brief summation: Check e-mail only twice a day and turn off the beeper that announces incoming messages. Use a daily work schedule that stops at 5 p.m. Instead of just making withdrawals from your personal bank account, set aside 15 minutes or more a day to make a deposit: go for a walk, soak in a hot bath, listen to music, or otherwise nurture yourself.

"By slowing down," Robinson says, "workaholics can accomplish more and do a better job."

Use that newfound time to mull over some memorable words on work addiction. Oscar Wilde: "Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do." Henry Ward Beecher: "Americans generally spend so much time on things that are urgent that we have none left to spend on those that are important." And finally, Augustus: "Make haste slowly."