Review essay of David L. Blustein’s The importance of work in an age of uncertainty : the eroding work experience in America (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019)

Abstract

This is an important new book by one of the most eminent vocational psychologists in the USA. Based at the Department of Counselling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, Blustein is best known for spearheading the “psychology of working” approach, a perspective that informs and infuses this volume whose fundamental premise is that, for better and (unfortunately too often) for worse, work remains at the core of who we are as humans, and in many ways defines us. Work thus provides some with opportunities for personal growth, purpose, passion and connection, while others experience it as a bane, a source of frustration and misery, and merely a means to an end, where surviving rather than thriving is the goal.