This book presents a new account of the significance and the human costs of work. A collaboration between experts in philosophy, social theory, and clinical psychology, it brings together empirical research with incisive analysis of work's political stakes to present a diagnosis of the pathologies of contemporary work and propose powerful remedies. There is little engagement in contemporary critical theory with the issue of work in general, and with the project of a normative theory in which work is central, in particular. The discussion in The Return of Work in Critical Theory is urgently needed for critical theory to become capable to react to the normative struggles around work which many diagnose in contemporary societies.