City Death.

Therapy Today’s article on stress in the City is hardly newsworthy, we can imagine it all too easily; the seven day weeks, sixteen hour days, dog eat dog environment, the massive pay cheques and constant threat of instant dismissal. Therapists to this toxic environment know well the feelings of anxiety, depression, self-loathing and loss of control, the eating disorders, alcohol and drug abuse it induces. The writer describes financial institutions as psychopathic, training and rewarding individuals in the ways of psychopathy. He describes a perfect storm where individuals have no free time for personal relationships, where nothing other than work stress is an acceptable personal admission, and where nothing less than a complete obedience to the faith of profit is acceptable. One is cut off, corralled and there’s no way out. More importantly these positions of great financial power are being pursued exclusively by this form of mutant human being. They may not have green heads but they exhibit a less than human awareness. Though obviously completely human they can’t address the full panoply of their basic humanity, which then permeates the whole of our ‘money culture.’ Where money was invented and is useful as a means of exchange, by acquiring a value in and of itself, it is being drained from society at large by those trained to have a pathological desire for it. Our continuing financial difficulties are largely due to society being drained of money to provide its useful exchange function. The writer as therapist though is not a moral guardian and can only offer coping strategies. I can only suggest workers in banks and other financial institutions act together to take control of their lives and workplace as a matter of personal urgency to re-balance their lifestyle: Fewer hours, more cooperation, more awareness and a broader view of their personal and professional objectives. Using money to make money is a variation on an oxymoron. Money is a means of exchange to service the endeavours of our labours; to use it as a means to itself is an intellectual absurdity.