Love and Work: Complementary Aspects of Personal Identity

Freud suggested that mental health depends on the capacity to love and to work. The complementary nature of these aspects of identity is examined and illustrated by case material from couples in marital therapy. It is argued that the work task and its milieu can support, or fail to support, personal development, as can a marriage. When alternatives are available, the choice of occupation, as of marital partner, is related to conscious and unconscious images of the self. Loss of work can be analogous to loss of love with implications for a person's sense of identity and marriage.