4/26/2021

The Healing of Work Addiction

 


           Causes of work addiction are different for males and females. Males have work addiction, the disorder, or the conscious, due to two reasons: the recognition of the conscious and the activities of thoughts. That is to say that problems have occurred in recognition and thoughts. Especially, the stress generated from work becomes the cause for this; the conscious like 'I am the only one who can do this work' or thoughts like 'this work is very necessary' operate. If they are bothered, if they notice others are doing better, or if problematic situations happen, strong stress and wounds are generated making them very difficult. The cause of the stress and wounds is work; if a person is not satisfied with his or her work, strong stress and wounds generate forming compulsion. This compulsion is relieved only when the work is satisfied. The circulation of having the compulsion and relieving the compulsion is formed this way. Thus, stress is generated due to work, but this work relieves the stress.

For males, stress plays an important role; the cause of work addiction is stress. If the stress from work is not healed, work addiction is more likely to happen. Since males relieve stress by getting immersed in fun and interesting things, they sometimes habitually get immersed in fun and interesting things. If this immersion in fun is done habitually too much, compulsion is created, forming an addiction. Treatment of this type of addiction is relatively easy. However, if it becomes an addiction, one cannot recognize that he is addicted to fun. Even if he knows that problems have occurred to him, his addiction is continued and gradually forgets problems. At this point, the addiction has become serious.

Unlike males, females have wounds of emotions as causes of stress. In general, an addiction that is related to human relationships occurs. If a female gets work addiction, she gets immersed in working; it is due to her wounds that are deep and many. To explain with an example, the sound of water flows and the sound of pebbles is heard together if the water is shallow, but the sound is not heard if the water is deep. It feels like the water flow is calm, but in fact, it is very powerful and fast. Wounds are the same thing. If wounds are small, they can be treated by having chit-chats or expressing feelings negatively. If wounds are big and deep, they become so powerful that one cannot heal them by oneself. Then, they get immersed in a certain thing such as work, exercise, hobby, study, man, sex, alcohol, drugs, games, etc. At this point, if they cannot do the thing they get immersed in, compulsion is formed, making the wounds appear very strongly. This makes females difficult; if they can control the difficult emotions of wounds only through doing the thing that they get immersed in, it is an addiction. Females' wounds are generated from human relationships. Addiction is not to treat it with the attachment of human relationships but to indulge in certain objects and become deluded that oneself is under treatment while forgetting one's wounds.

Because work addiction is strong and large, small stresses and wounds in human relationships can immediately form an obsessive-compulsive disorder. By making themselves immersed in work, they relieve the compulsion. Thus, they react to stress and wounds very sensitively and get immersed in work.

Comparing male's work addiction with female's work addiction, it is not difficult to treat male's work addiction. A male is treated by changing the way he relieves stress, but a female must treat deep and large wounds, along the way she relieves stress. However, because treating female's deep and large wounds makes her difficult, it is difficult for her to have the willingness to be treated by herself in many cases. Plus, it requires much time and effort to be treated.

In most cases, work addiction is perceived as a good since one can immerse in work and have fun from working, but males perceive themselves as the same as work, have a compulsive desire for work, and relieve this compulsion by working. This causes powerful stress repeatedly and continually. Moreover, as for females, their deep wounds are not yet treated but operated continually and repeatedly. The work addict himself or herself does not know that such intense stress and deep wounds are constantly operating. When people are addicted to work, males are associated with strong stress and females with deep wounds.

Work addiction is a psychological disorder, but it should be prevented from turning into another psychological disorder if it provides the value of self-actualization of oneself and others. If work addiction turns into another psychological disorder and causes damage or difficulty to oneself or others, it should be treated. It is necessary to focus on work and have fun, but also to prevent work addiction. For this, the methods to prevent and treat the work addiction are different for males and for females.

First, it is good for males to have various ways to relieve stress. by having various ways to relieve stress, they can prevent themselves from getting immersed in one specific thing. Thus, for males who are addicted to work, it is good for them to spend more time on hobby and exercise. For white-collar workers, blue-collar workers, or emotion laborers, they need to choose whether to have static activities or dynamic activities for hobby and exercise. It is also a good way for white-collar workers to choose to get immersed in the knowledge that is different from their work.

The best way for white-collar workers is to strengthen dynamic exercises and hobbies because they usually do static works, and the best way for blue-collar workers is to strengthen static exercises and hobbies since they usually do dynamic work. Of course, it could be difficult and not easy to get used to new things due to the feelings of resistance and pressure at first, but work addiction will be prevented and treated naturally if they continue trying to enjoy the new hobby and exercise. The reason for strengthening hobbies and exercises in various ways is that it can turn into another addiction if they immerse themselves in one specific thing. They can be addicted to another specific one while trying to prevent or treat work addiction. So, it is necessary to strengthen many things at the same time rather than one.

Another way is to get immersed in work that is different from current work; it must be nothing to do with either outcomes or accomplishment. That is to say, it is important to consider your work as a hobby and to do your work as if you are dreaming instead of attempting to accomplish your work in reality. It is better not trying to have achievement and goals.

The method is effective in treating and preventing addiction; the principle of the method can be described with a Korean proverb, ‘treating toxic with another toxic’. Thus, various hobbies, exercises, other works treat work addiction if they are done as a temporary delusion, but they are dangerous if they are done to make results and accomplishment. Hence, it is better to have the ability to control by diversifying and fortifying exercises and hobbies.

When people become workaholics, compulsions are formed by stress at work; these compulsions can be relieved by doing other hobbies, exercises, and work. Through this, workaholics can be free from having and relieving compulsions of the same thing. If doing other things become a habit, they can focus on their work by getting away from compulsions of work.

For female's treatment of work addiction, the method to heal stress and the method to treat and prevent wounds of the unconscious must be done together. Work, hobby, exercise, etc. must be done together, and wound treatment as well must be done to recover one's self-respect. In other words, wound treatment, varieties of hobbies and exercises, partially focusing on other works, etc. should be done together. At this time, having complementary relationships can help prevent or treat work addicts as their emotions begin to operate.

In particular, when receiving psychological treatment, it is the best for females to have treatment for relationship recovery with husband, parents, and children so that they can strengthen their maternal love. It is because most of the females' psychological wounds are wounds from human relationships. However, a female must be careful to not fall in a man-woman relationship or a romantic relationship. When she falls in love with a man, it would make her wounds deeper rather than treating them. It will result in a reverse effect. The love required for psychological treatment is the love of the unconscious that is unconditional, unlimited and does not have any purpose like maternal love. Therefore, the love of the unconscious that parents, admiring teachers, children, and husband holding unlimited responsibility have is necessary.

You might wonder how the mind and psychology of males and of females are distinguished when it comes to work addiction. The mind of males and of females cannot be clearly distinguished because there are some males having female's mind and some females having a male's mind. Thus, only males with the male's psychology and females with the female's mind have been explained so far. In the cases when males have the female's mind and when females have the male's mind, the methods to treat and prevent their work addiction are different. The causes must be sought in more detail so that the right way to treat for the person can be also found; however, in general, the treatment and preventative methods for male's work addiction and female's work addiction are used together in many cases.

Some of you also might wonder about the treatment period when taking counseling to treat work addiction. It varies depending on the depth of work addiction of males and of females. Some people need only few numbers of counseling while others need more than a year to be treated and prevented from being addicted to other things. What's more important than any other thing is that the work addict himself or herself must have the will to prevent or treat the addiction. With the will and effort, the addiction can be treated within a few months.

People tend to think that prevention and treatment will not be difficult because they can consciously try to do something to make things right if they know they are addicted to work. However, they think this way because they don't know what work addiction really is. Work addiction is very difficult to prevent and treat by their own will because of the intense stress and wounds.

Work addiction can be treated if one recognizes that something is wrong with himself or herself and consciously tries to make efforts, but the question is how to make this person recognize that he or she has some problems. Recognizing it consciously is useless. It must be done unknowingly; the best way is to let him or her know the principles of how the mind operates logically. As this person listens to the principle of how the mind and psychology operate, he or she starts thinking, 'why am I different?' and realizes that something's wrong with him or her by thinking, 'I have problems.' Telling him or her 'you need to get treatment because you have some problems' operates as stress, and that person won't accept that he or she has problems.

From the perspective of a company or organization, there are both advantages and disadvantages of work addiction. For some companies, most executives and staff are addicted to work. The performance and values are getting higher, but household and human relationships are collapsed. Rather than analyzing what the company is focusing on, it is better to analyze which psychological disorder, between the disorder of the conscious and the disorder of emotions, the working executives and staff have in order to know the company's management and the future visions. If none of the executives and staff are not addicted to work, the future of the company is not bright. In fact, work addiction is very good and useful to develop the performance and values for the company and organization. On the other hand, a work addict is negligent in his or her family resulting in problems in human relationships. Therefore, companies and organizations should have a healing system to treat and prevent work addiction, and it is important to provide an atmosphere and environment to let people get immersed in their work. By operating a psychological education program, it is wise to create a mind and psychology that can immerse executives and employees in the healing system and work.

Recently, companies and organizations are investing a lot in a healing system for executives and staff, but it won't be much effective. Many lectures and educations for healing are just for refreshing; they are knowledge education of delivering knowledge about the mind and psychology. It is not a healing education for treating and preventing psychological problems and disorders. The healing education is not for talking about wrongs or delivering knowledge but for teaching 'the principles of how the mind and psychology operate' accurately. By doing so, people can recognize their psychological problems and disorders on their own and become able to control and heal themselves. KIP (Korea Institute of Psycho-education) developed 'the unconscious psychological treatment training' and it has verified it for 3 years. It is possible because of the goal of making 'psychological treatment only by psychological training'. 


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