Treating career burnout: a psychodynamic existential perspective.

This article presents an approach for treating career burnout based on a psychodynamic existential perspective. Psychodynamic theory contributes the idea that people choose an occupation that enables them to replicate significant childhood experiences. Existential theory contributes the idea that people attempt to find existential significance through their work. It is suggested that when treating career burnout it is essential to address three questions: Why, psychodynamically, did this person choose this particular career, and how was it expected to provide existential significance? Why does this individual feel a sense of failure in the existential quest, and how is the sense of failure related to burnout? What changes need to take place for this individual to derive a sense of existential significance from work? A case illustration is presented that demonstrates the application of this approach.

Gender differences in romantic jealousy.

Findings of studies of gender differences in jealousy are contradictory. In the present study, conflicting literature was addressed by distinguishing 5 dimensions of jealousy: level, trigger, experience, focus, and responses. In 4 studies, 3 in the U.S. and 1 in Israel, gender differences were explored in these 5 dimensions of romantic jealousy. Although there were no gender differences in the likelihood, frequency, duration, or intensity of jealousy, there were differences in the responses to certain jealousy-producing occasions as well as in the focus, experience, and expression of jealousy.

Substance abuse and prostitution.

A study of 200 street prostitutes documented a high prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in their family of origin, during the drift into prostitution and as part of prostitution. Additionally, the study documented a high prevalence of substance abuse among the child molesters and rapists of the subjects. The existence of a relationship between substance abuse and prostitution in and of itself does not imply causality. It is not clear whether substance abuse is one of the factors that pushed these women into prostitution (as noted earlier, 55% of the subjects reported being addicted prior to their prostitution involvement) or whether it was prostitution that caused their drug involvement (30% became addicted following and 15% concurrently with their prostitution involvement). Most likely, both prostitution and substance abuse are the behavioral translations of these women's endless cycles of victimization and severely disturbed backgrounds, as well as an expression of the self-destructive pull, the sense of hopelessness, helplessness, negative self-concept and psychological paralysis reported by almost every subject in the study.