By Foster Kamer 2/15/12 2:18pm

Occupational Hazards

People on Wall Street, Stressed: The Stock Image Collection.

Study: Investment Banking is Bad for You, Will Make You An Alcoholic Adderall-Addicted Paranoid Shell of a Human Being

Say what you will about investment banking as a benefit to and/or plague on the finance sector, economy, New York City, and the universe in general. Now there’s science to back the idea that, yes, investment banking is actually, medically ‘bad’ for one’s health. How bad? Try “insomnia, alcoholism, heart palpitations, eating disorders and an explosive temper” or at the very least “a stress-related physical or emotional ailment within several years on the job.” Science! Read More

By Paula Froelich 10/25/11 11:20am

Mental Health Week

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The Neuroses of New York

Recently, a woman entered taxi driver Marc Preven’s cab just outside of FAO Schwartz on Madison and East 60th with her “son,” a Jack Russell terrier. “She tells me, ‘It’s his birthday,’” Mr. Preven recalled. “Then she says that every year on his birthday she takes him to FAO Schwarz to pick out a toy. This year the dog picked out a Paul Frank plush monkey. But you know, that’s not even weird to me anymore—it’s like, don’t all dogs get to go to FAO Schwarz on their birthday and pick out a birthday toy?”

In 1936, Karen Horney, a Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst who once had an ill-fated affair with pioneering social psychologist Erich Fromm, published what was then the definitive work on neurosis, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. Naturally, she was a New York City resident at the time. (Brooklyn, actually.) Read More