For many of Philipson's patients, the company's annual picnic or holiday party was the biggest social event of their year, and their most trusted confidantes were their colleagues from the office. As a result, when transfers or layoffs occurred, or when some of their "friends" played hardball politics, her patients became unglued. "You can have collegial relationships at work," warns Philipson, "but friendships at work should be treated like office romances: You need to proceed very cautiously."

Sidebar: That's Why They Call It "Work"

Browse through any bookstore, and you'll find dozens of titles exhorting you to pour more of your heart into your work. Benjamin Hunnicutt, an historian at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and an expert on the history of work, preaches just the opposite view. Hunnicutt, author of "Kellogg's Six-Hour Day" (Temple University Press, 1996) and a forthcoming book, "Saving Work: A Failing Faith," believes that our jobs have assumed too much importance in our culture: "Work has become our new religion, where we worship and give our time." In an interview, he offers a brief history of work and a prescription for a healthier relationship with it.

How was work seen in the past?

"Until the 20th century, work was secondary to other parts of life. We can see this by looking at the words that mean work in different cultures. The Spanish word for work, 'trabajo,' comes from a Latin word for an instrument of torture. The Irish word, 'job,' took on a dual meaning: a temporary assignment, and excrement. Even the Puritans considered work a means to an end, the end being God. But the collapse of traditional cultural structures like family and religion has created a vacuum of belief, which work has grown to fill."

Aren't more of us devoting ourselves to work because work is more fulfilling?

"That is not true. Yes, fewer jobs involve manual labor. But the idea that machines have freed us for this mythical idea of good work just hasn't happened. Job-satisfaction studies over the past 20 years indicate that people are looking for identity, purpose, and meaning in their work, but very few are finding those things. That's why people are job-hopping, desperately trying to find the work equivalent of the Holy Grail. They aren't finding it because what they're looking for -- salvation from a meaningless life and a senseless world -- simply can't be found at work."

How can we achieve a better balance?

"Kellogg experimented with a six-hour day in the 1930s, right up until 1985. What he found was that six hours did somehow tip the balance for many people. It gave them more time to spend with their family and to give to their communities and to themselves. But it's also important to look at where your soul is. If you work for goals that are only found in the marketplace -- to improve your reputation or to make more money, for instance -- you will not give of yourself freely. You will not do things, like play music, for which you aren't being paid. And so you will have work without end."

Contact Benjamin Hunnicutt by email (benjamin-hunnicutt@uiowa.edu).