Repetition in the service of the erotisation of suffering. When addiction enters into the relationship to work: Theoretical considerations on a clinical case

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article tries to reconsider the relationship to work that one can develop to the point when it impacts the intimate sphere. To do so, it shall question the role of the sexualisation of the suffering between subject and object of a work/job that has become the vector of an enjoyable torment. The study will focus on the clinical case of a patient who is being treated in psychoanalytical psychotherapy (she started the therapy 5 years ago). This patient maintains a relationship to her work that could be defined as “addictive.” The approach will be to use the psychodynamics of work (Dejours, 1992. “Pathologie de la communication. Situation de travail et espace public: le cas du nucléaire.” In Pouvoir et légitimité, Raison pratiques, edited by A. Cotterau and P. Ladrière, vol. 3, 177–201. Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS; 2003. L’évaluation du travail à l’épreuve du réel: Critiques des fondements de l’évaluation. Paris: INRAA Editions) in perspective of Paul Denis’s work on satisfaction and influence. Therefore, it will clinically illustrate the process inherent in the subversive and intimate perversion of the relationship to work: between resistance and suffering serving a satisfaction for which the relations of impulsive subordination (between means and goal) have been inverted to the benefit of a repetitive compulsion.